A former Schuylkill Products Inc. vice president pleaded guilty Wednesday in Harrisburg federal court to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.

Dennis F. Campbell, 59, of Orwigsburg, faces up to five years in prison after admitting his part in what prosecutors say was a 14-year plan that allowed Cressona-based Schuylkill Products Inc. to pocket $121 million. Schuylkill Products Inc. received money under a minority set-aside construction contract program; money that it was not entitled to receive.

Campbell admitted the one charge against him, conspiracy to defraud and commit mail fraud, in a 25-minute hearing before U.S. Senior District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo, who did not set a date for sentencing and allowed the defendant to remain free before it without having to post bail.

“The defendant, has agreed to cooperate with the United States in the ongoing investigation of this matter,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce D. Brandler told Rambo during the hearing.

Brandler said after the hearing that “substantial” cooperation by Campbell could lead to a lighter sentence for him, although the actual recommendation would not be made until the sentencing hearing. In addition to the possible five-year prison term, Campbell could be sentenced to pay costs, a $250,000 fine and a $100 special assessment, and serve a three-year term of supervised release after any prison term.

Defendants in such cases are usually not sentenced until after they complete their cooperation, Brandler said.

Brandler said he was not at liberty to say if anyone else would be prosecuted as a result of the investigation.

“Nothing has been filed,” he said. Brandler declined to identify any other possible targets of the investigation, or what led the government to start the probe. While no one else has been targeted at this time, it is believed that this plea could set the stage for more prosecutions.

“Until we actually charge someone,” it is inappropriate to identify people as targets of an investigation, Brandler said.

Prosecutors say, and Campbell admitted, that Schuylkill Products and its subsidiary, CDS Engineers Inc., used minority-owned Marikina Construction Corp., West Haven, Conn., as a front from 1993 through 1997 to obtain $121 million in highway construction contracts across Pennsylvania.

Marikina was certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise under a U.S. Department of Transportation programs that sets aside a percentage of highway contracts for such businesses. Marikina would receive a small fixed fee for each contract and Schuylkill Products pocketed the rest, according to prosecutors.

“In essence, Schuylkill Products and CDS rented Marikina’s name,” Brandler told Rambo. “Marikina would not be obligated to do anything.”

Schuylkill Products and CDS employees engaged in such fraudulent practices as preparing documents on Marikina letterheads, using Marikina’s computer password on computers and putting magnetic placards with Marikina’s name on Schuylkill Products vehicles, Brandler told Rambo.

Marikina is owned by Romeo Cruz, a naturalized American citizen of Filipino descent.

Campbell said little during the hearing and both he and his attorney, Frederick J. Fanelli, Pottsville, declined to comment on the case after the hearing.

Brandler said after the hearing that federal investigators are examining whether Schuylkill Products and CDS used the same tactic elsewhere.

“Part of our investigation is to determine whether this activity extended to other states,” he said. It may be possible that the same tactics were used in states other than Pennsylvania.