Chris Collins, a New York Republican congressman until his resignation on Monday, said he would plead guilty Tuesday in an insider trading case in federal court after having spent more than a year saying the allegations against him were “meritless” and winning reelection while under indictment.
Collins, the first sitting congressman to back President Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Collins and his co-defendants — his son and another man — had pleaded not guilty twice in the case, once after the original set of charges in August 2018 and a second time — to the revised charges contained in what’s known as a superseding indictment — in September 2019.
His co-defendants are set to change their pleas on Thursday, according to court filings. All three had been set to face trial in February 2020.
Collins had been charged in the superseding indictment with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and having made a false statement to an FBI agent.
