Timothy Oliver, the Plymouth lawyer who used the ruse of a land development project in Libya to embezzle $500,000 from a Mexican construction company, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
Oliver, 60, faces 27 to 41 months in prison.
According to a plea agreement between Oliver and the U.S. attorney's office, his guilty plea to the wire fraud count ends further investigation of "known crimes."
In previous court proceedings, Oliver's attorney, Dan Scott, expressed concern that Oliver faced multiple indictments "adding new and different charges."
"This settles the investigation," Scott said in reference to the guilty plea.
Oliver was indicted in May on six counts of wire fraud for his actions in a 2009 deal with the Mexican construction company ARS Tectonica. As part of the plea deal, five of the counts were dismissed.
According to federal prosecutors, Oliver devised an elaborate hoax to convince ARS Tectonica that he had a lucrative contract with a branch of the Libyan government called the Organization for Development of Administrative Centers. Oliver described himself as vice chairman for North African Affairs for a company called GVA International which purportedly was developing a real estate project in Bani Walid, Libya.
Oliver told ARS that he could get the Mexican company involved in the project but that he needed $500,000 from the Mexican firm to help secure a performance bond. After receiving the money, Oliver spent all but $1,000 "on debts unrelated to the ODAC contract," according to federal prosecutors.
