Former Indiana University basketball player and radio commentator Todd Leary pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of conversion or misappropriation of title insurance escrow funds related to the misappropriation of title funds.

Originally charged with 17 felonies, Leary, 39, was scheduled to stand trial later this month in Allen Superior Court. The only charge to which he admitted was an 18th count added Thursday.

In a plea agreement with prosecutors in exchange for his guilty plea, Leary will be sentenced in October to no more than three years in prison, or half that time if he pays the nearly $295,000 in restitution by the date of his sentencing. The sentence could be served on work release or home detention.

Leary, of Carmel, was accused of conspiring with Joseph Garretson, a local mortgage broker and title company owner who was sentenced in June to 11 1/2 years in prison on charges of corrupt business influence, conversion or misappropriation of title insurance escrow funds and unlawful loan origination activities.

Garretson admitted arranging mortgage refinancing loans for area clients and failing to use the money to pay off the original loans, according to court documents.

Through his attorney, Garretson told investigators Leary pressured him on numerous occasions for money, threatening to disclose Garretson's financial misdeeds, according to court documents.

Between March 11, 2008, and Feb. 12, 2009, according to court documents, more than $1 million in wire transfers went from a Fort Wayne Title bank account into a National City Bank account opened by Leary. Between March 2008 and March 2009, Leary withdrew $690,000 from the account, according to court documents.

Leary was arrested in early February at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, moments before the IU-Purdue basketball game. He was an analyst for the IU Radio Network.

For more on this story, see Friday's print editions of The Journal Gazette or visit www.journalgazette.net after 3 a.m. Friday.

rgreen@jg.net