The former owner of a Pennsylvania debt-collection company pleaded guilty Tuesday to a scheme to pay about $2,000 for plaques and catering for then-Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s 2014 Women’s History Month program to reward Brown for what he believed was her role in helping him land contracts through her office.

Donald Donagher Jr., 69, former chief executive officer of the Penn Credit Corp., entered his plea to one count of corruptly giving something of value to a public official. He faces up to about a year-and-a-half in prison when he’s sentenced Jan. 21.

Penn Credit, meanwhile, entered into a deferred prosecution deal with the U.S. attorney’s office, agreeing to pay a $225,000 fine and continue to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for charges being dropped in two years.

Donagher’s case was being closely watched in the Chicago legal community because his attorneys alleged that prosecutors overstepped the language of the federal bribery statute in bringing the indictment.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge John Lee issued a rare setback for the U.S. attorney’s office in dismissing the more serious bribery charges in the case, saying prosecutors had failed to allege there was an “explicit” quid pro quo tied to Donagher’s campaign contributions to Brown.

In a 17-page plea agreement with prosecutors, Donagher admitted that he was attempting to reward Brown for “her perceived role” in steering business to his company when he agreed to help fund Brown’s Women’s History event, which honored female justices and judges in Cook County and across the state.

Penn Credit Corp. had previously been awarded about half of the county’s contracts to collect unpaid parking ticket debt, according to the plea.

In March 2014, Donagher paid $869 to a Morton Grove trophy company for commemorative plaques for Brown’s event, as well as another $1,000 to a food company for catering services, the plea stated. After agreeing to cover the expenses, Donagher forwarded an email from a member of Brown’s staff to other Penn Credit employees and lobbyists asking if they could represent the company at the event, according to the plea.

“I told her we are fans of (Brown),” Donagher wrote, adding “we gotta stay ahead of” competing companies.

The original indictment filed against Donagher in 2019 accused him of sending an email in 2011 to a company lobbyist in Illinois indicating he had promised Brown “10K of ‘early’ money” in exchange for a lucrative contract with the county. The next month, he donated $10,000 to her campaign fund, prosecutors said.

Brown, however, was never charged in the case. Donagher’s attorneys have criticized the government for accusing someone of paying bribes without indicting the elected official who allegedly took them.

Donagher’s lawyer, Theodore Poulos, said in a court filing last year that if prosecutors could have proved a quid pro quo existed, then Brown surely would have been charged.

“The fact that she has not been charged is sufficient, in and of itself, to conclude what the defense and the government plainly know: The government cannot establish a quid pro quo,” Poulos wrote.

The original indictment also alleged Donagher had similarly bribed county clerks in Florida. But those allegations were dropped in Tuesday’s plea agreement.

“The government agreed to dismiss all other charges against Mr. Donagher, including all charges and allegations involving or relating to Florida,” Poulos said Tuesday.

Brown, who left office last year after 20 years at the helm of the county’s sprawling court clerk system, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Other allegations in the original indictment that were left intact in Lee’s ruling were not addressed in the plea agreement Tuesday, including that Donagher paid into the clerk’s scholarship and community development fund and directed employees to make robocalls for Brown’s campaign.

Donagher’s case was one of several to arise out of a lengthy federal corruption probe centered on bribes-for-jobs allegations in Brown’s office.

Two of Brown’s underlings were later convicted of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the allegations.

jmeisner@chicago tribune.com