Former NXIVM employee Frank Parlato has pleaded guilty to avoid going to trial.

Former real estate developer and weekly newspaper publisher Frank R. Parlato Jr. pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to failing to file a form with the IRS as part of a plea agreement that settles a nearly seven-year prosecution.

Parlato admitted he accepted cash payments totaling $19,970 from a food vendor at the One Niagara Welcome Center in Niagara Falls but failed to notify the IRS, which must be alerted to receipts of cash in amounts greater than $10,000.

Parlato, 67, was slated to go to trial next month on charges in an 18-count indictment, including fraud and money laundering.

Parlato also agreed to pay about $184,940 in restitution for unpaid taxes on years of income and to forfeit about $1 million to federal authorities, the latter of which was money seized by the government in 2015.

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“Will I be sentenced to prison? I don’t know, maybe,” Parlato said outside the Robert H. Jackson United States Courthouse after he entered his plea. “I am prepared to do that, and I’ll do my very best whatever happens. But I do think that I’m entitled to a chance to explain what I did, why I did it, and please keep in mind it was only one document, one time, 12 years ago, measured against a great deal of success.”