HARRISBURG (AP) - A onetime chief of staff to ex-Gov. Ed Rendell agreed in a court document filed Friday to plead guilty to wire fraud for pocketing thousands of dollars in supposed campaign contributions from a fake company set up by the FBI to investigate public corruption in the state.

John H. Estey collected $20,000 from the fake company in 2011 to make campaign contributions that would influence state lawmakers and agreed to distribute the money in a way that would hide the company's role, according to a plea deal filed in Harrisburg federal court.State law bans campaign donations from corporations."Estey identified a number of members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly who Estey claimed would draft, introduce, control and support legislation beneficial to the business interests" of the fake company, referred to in the paperwork as Undercover Corp., or UCC, according to the criminal information document filed Friday.Estey "indicated that campaign contributions to those legislators would be necessary to gain access to, and the attention of, those legislators and to facilitate legislative action, or inaction, favorable to the UCC," the document said.It said Estey agreed to give $5,000 each to three unnamed lawmakers and one unidentified leadership caucus but made only $7,000 in donations and converted $13,000 "to his own use."Estey first met with agents posing as UCC executives in 2009, and he represented the company from 2009 through 2011 as an owner of an unidentified Philadelphia-based lobbying firm, court papers said.Estey did not respond to a telephone message left at his home in Ardmore, in suburban Philadelphia. He became an executive with The Hershey Trust Co. in 2011. On Friday, the Hershey Trust said it fired Estey from his job as executive vice president and it had had no prior knowledge he was a target of a federal investigation.His defense attorney, Ronald H. Levine, said a plea hearing has not been scheduled."My only comment is that Mr. Estey is sorry for the mistakes he's made," Levine said.