Authorities said Kevin Jones, 48, of Laurel, Md., was a contract oversight specialist at HUD starting in 1999, with access to bid offers and particular information about businesses.

Jones, another former HUD employee and a former employee for a D.C. educational agency were involved in the scheme with the same Maryland company, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu of the District.

He made his plea Thursday before a judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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Prosecutors said that starting in 2010, Jones gave Charles Thomas — owner of a company that offered tech services to the federal and city governments — “non-public information” about pending contracts. Officials said Thomas’s company wasn’t named in court documents because the company itself is not charged in the bribery scheme.

In exchange, Thomas gave Jones tickets to sporting events, travel and cash. The scheme went on for at least eight years, according to authorities with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The information Jones gave to Thomas provided him and his company with “an unfair competitive advantage,” in getting two HUD contracts that were worth more than $4.5 million. Jones personally approved invoices that totaled $3.8 million for work Thomas did on one contract.

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Jones received gifts from Thomas and his company that included $13,000 in cash and checks, meals, a camera, a pair of basketball shoes, $6,800 in hotels and travel expenses, plus $17,000 worth of tickets to Washington Redskins games and three Super Bowls and another $1,700 worth of Washington Wizards tickets.

Another former HUD employee, LaFonda Lewis, also pleaded guilty in January in a similar scheme of giving Thomas information in exchange for gifts. Lewis, 57, of Lusby, Md., was a former supervisory contract oversight specialist. She is due to be sentenced March 28.

Officials said Thomas, 45, also of Lusby, pleaded guilty in May to several counts of conspiracy and admitted to paying bribes to Jones and Lewis — the two HUD employees — and to Shauntell Harley, who was an employee at the D.C. State Superintendent of Education office, in return for payments on contracts.