A debt collection agency executive this week pleaded guilty to charges of bank bribery as part of a multi-year scheme to defraud its lender, Waterbury-based Webster Bank.

Patrick Pinto, 44, of Bohemia, N.Y., waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to one count of conspiring to commit bank bribery.

Authorities charge that between 2007 and 2011, Pinto, along with other executives at Oxford Collection Agency, engaged in a scheme to defraud the agency’s lender, Waterbury-based Webster Bank, as well as its investors, clients and commercial debtors from whom Oxford collected. Oxford’s victims lost more than $12 million as a result of the scheme.

Oxford Collection Agency was a private financial services company that primarily engaged in debt collecting and had offices in New York, Pennsylvania and Florida.

According to a statement from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP), Oxford sometimes obtained and retained business with its banking clients by paying bribes and kickbacks to bank officials. As part of the scheme, Pinto, a Vice President of Oxford, and other Oxford executives made monthly payments of between $2,500 and $3,500, which were hidden in cigar boxes, to an assistant vice president of U.S. Bank in Ohio.

"As part of the scam, in order to obtain and retain U.S. Bank’s debt collections business, Pinto bribed a manager at the bank, bribes that included expensive gifts and cash payments totaling thousands of dollars," Special Inspector General for TARP Christy Romero said in a statement.

Judge Underhill has scheduled sentencing for Sept. 9, at which time Pinto faces a maximum term of imprisonment of five years and a fine of up to $250,000.

Pinto has been released on a $50,000 bond since his arrest last December.

In May 2012, Richard Pinto, Oxford Collection Agency’s chairman of the board, and his son, Peter Pinto, Oxford’s president and chief executive officer, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering and one count of wire fraud stemming from this scheme. In December 2012, Oxford Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer Randall Silver, Executive Vice President Charles Harris, and Chief Operations Officer Carlos Novelli also pleaded guilty to various charges.

On January 30, 2013, Richard Pinto, now deceased, was sentenced to five years of imprisonment. The other defendants await sentencing.

Patrick Pinto is the son of the late Richard Pinto.