PITTSBURGH — A businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to bribing a city official to get a $327,000 contract to put radios and computers in city police cars, but his lawyer said Pittsburgh’s former police chief came up with the idea and was paid $10,000 for his role in it.

Nathan Harper, who resigned as chief in February, hatched the phony bid scheme involving Arthur Bedway Jr.’s company, Bedway’s lawyer Martin Dietz told the judge. Harper and his attorneys have repeatedly denied any involvement in the scheme or the radio contract.

“Nate Harper approached Mr. Bedway about this idea,” and the chief brought city employee Christine Kebr into it, Dietz said moments before Bedway pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bribery and mail fraud.

Kebr, 55, pleaded guilty in December to taking $6,000 in bribes from Bedway to help his business, Alpha Outfitters, land the contract in 2007. According to her guilty plea, she took the bribes to prepare bids that made it appear Bedway’s business was owned by a woman in order to take advantage of city set-asides for female-owned businesses.

Harper resigned in February and was indicted in March on charges he conspired to set up a secret fund using fees collected from bars and other businesses that hire city officers to work off-duty security details.

Harper is also charged with spending more than $30,000 from the fund for personal reasons and not filing federal tax returns from 2008 to 2011.

Harper’s attorneys have said he’ll plead guilty.

One of the attorneys, Robert DelGreco Jr., on Thursday again denied Harper’s involvement in the Bedway scheme.

“The chief categorically denies there was any truth he was involved as a mastermind with Alpha Outfitters or that Art Bedway gave him any money,” DelGreco told The Associated Press. “I think the best evidence that it did not occur can be gleaned from the fact that Art Bedway has made these allegations for quite some time and there will be no charges against Nate Harper stemming from those assertions.”