AKRON, Ohio – William Montague, the former director of the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center in Cleveland, pleaded guilty Thursday to 64 corruption-related charges, for which he could spend up to 6 1/2 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi scheduled sentencing for May 20. A 111-page plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors also will require Montague to pay more than $400,000 in restitution, forfeiture and fines.

The monetary penalties are among the highest of the more than 60 elected officials, public employees and contractors implicated in the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal, including former Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence and owes more than $345,000.

Montague, 62, of Brecksville, was the only federal government employee convicted among the more than 60 defendants, and was the last defendant remaining in the seven-year federal investigation into corruption in Cuyahoga County.

During the 1 1/2-hour hearing Thursday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Antoinette Bacon provided a detailed accounting of Montague’s crimes. They included money laundering, wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiring to defraud the VA through bribery and kickback schemes in which he accepted tens of thousands of dollars from contractors in exchange for inside information.

Lioi questioned Montague: “Did you engage in the conduct described” in the plea agreement?

“I did, your honor,” Montague responded.

Lioi allowed Montague to remain free on bond until he is sentenced.

Under terms of the plea deal, Montague confessed to committing 64 charges contained in the original 65-count indictment. Federal prosecutors agreed to drop one charge involving the bribery of an unidentified public official sometime between 2007-12. The indictment accused Montague of seeking or receiving something of value in return for committing a fraud on the VA on behalf of the unnamed official.

The indictment provided details to a 2010 criminal scheme in which Montague signed a $30,000-a-year consulting contract with an unnamed Buffalo-based design firm, identified only as Business 75.

Montague pleaded guilty to charges that he conspired with employees at the company to defraud the VA through bribery, fraud and kickbacks in exchange for providing confidential information about VA contracts and projects the company was seeking to obtain, causing potential losses to the government totaling about $20 million, Bacon said.

Montague provided the company a secret list he called “the mother lode” containing all of the planned new VA medical centers that would be bid out for construction through 2022, according to the indictment.

Montague also was charged with billing both the VA and his consulting clients for the same travel expenses.

Montague also pleaded guilty to giving confidential information to electrical contractor Michael Forlani, the former owner of Doan Pyramid Electric in Cleveland, and head of Veterans Development LLC.

Veterans Development LLC was selected by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2005 to develop and manage the consolidation of the VA’s Brecksville campus with an enlarged campus near University Circle. The development included a new administration building and parking garage at East Boulevard and East 105th Street, adjacent to the VA hospital. A 122-bed dwelling for homeless veterans was privately financed.

Forlani is serving an eight-year prison term for racketeering, bribery and other corruption-related crimes.

“Today's guilty pleas are the result of a two-year investigation conducted by special agents of the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and the FBI," said Gavin McClaren, the Cleveland VA’s resident agent in charge. “We will continue to protect taxpayers against those who would enrich themselves at the expense of our nation’s veterans.”

Last October, the U.S. inspector general concluded that the decision to consolidate the VA centers was “fundamentally flawed.” Instead of saving an estimated $29 million a year, as forecast by Forlani and local VA administrators, the inspector general said the consolidation would cost the VA nearly half-billion dollars over the next 20 years.

Montague joined the VA in 1975, and served as director of the Cleveland VA center from 1995 until his retirement in 2010. His salary was $177,000. He later came out of retirement to serve as director of the Dayton VA Medical Center in 2011.

The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center is about the fifth-largest such VA facility in the country and annually serves about 95,000 veterans from 24 counties in Northeast Ohio.