Rob McCord

HARRISBURG — Just-resigned Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord plans to plead guilty to federal extortion charges for using his office to threaten potential donors into contributing money to his failed gubernatorial campaign, according to court papers filed Monday.

The papers include a plea agreement signed by McCord, and a guilty plea is set for Feb. 17, said McCord’s lawyer, Robert Welsh.

Prosecutors filed two charges of extortion in connection with McCord’s dealings with a Philadelphia-based law firm and a Western Pennsylvania-based property management firm.

The maximum penalty for each charge is 20 years in prison, and Welsh said it will be up to the judge to decide the punishment.

The firms were not named, but in the few details revealed about the case, it appeared clear that McCord’s telephone conversations were being recorded.

At the time, McCord was trailing badly to the eventual Democratic primary winner, Tom Wolf, and he was burning quickly through his campaign cash with about a month before the primary election.

In an April 21 phone call, McCord complained to an unnamed lawyer that his law firm’s managing partner had not pledged more than $5,000 to McCord’s campaign, despite McCord’s entreaties. The managing partner was a supporter of Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican who was seeking re-election, and a likely supporter of someone else for governor in 2018, McCord noted.

“And that’s fine, but you also run a law firm, so if you are not going to hedge your bet, don’t think that I am so stupid that I am not going to read the riot act down the road,” McCord told the lawyer. “You know what I mean?”

McCord also encouraged the lawyer, who was a neighbor in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, to speak to the managing partner to let him know that a $25,000 contribution would be acceptable, even if through another conduit, such as the lawyer or the lawyer’s wife.