An ex-city employee has agreed to plead guilty to a federal felony charge in connection with an overtime fraud scheme the feds allege she committed during her time working for the Boston Housing Authority that netted her $40,000.

Helen Murray, a Malden resident who worked for the Boston Housing Authority from 2009 to late October 2024, entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office Wednesday that will see prosecutors recommend that she avoid jail time and pay $72,131 restitution in exchange for pleading guilty to wire fraud.

The plea agreement, which calls for a two-year probation sentence and possible court-determined fine, was agreed upon a day after the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed an “information” form in federal court detailing the alleged overtime fraud scheme Murray is purported to have committed between January 2023 and August 2024.

“From approximately January 2023 through August 2024, Murray submitted to BHA payroll several dozen weekly overtime forms that were false and fraudulent, in that they overstated or falsely listed hours of overtime that Murray did not actually work,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Chao wrote.

“Murray fraudulently obtained in excess of $40,000 in BHA overtime pay during the period in question,” Chao added.

The purpose of the scheme, Chao wrote, was for Murray to obtain overtime pay “under false and misleading pretenses,” by “submitting false overtime forms that misrepresented the hours of overtime purportedly worked,” and “falsely representing that her BHA supervisor had approved such overtime forms.”

Murray rose through the ranks during her time with the Boston Housing Authority, working first as a clerk, then as a senior management aide, and finally as an executive secretary in the property management division, from late 2022 to October 2024.

In a letter to the City Council Wednesday, BHA Administrator Kenzie Bok said Murray was fired after the Housing Authority discovered evidence of “a staff member committing significant overtime fraud.”

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“We promptly reported our findings to the Boston Police Department and moved to terminate the employee,” Bok wrote. “Since then, we have been actively cooperating with the BPD, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, as the fraud implicated federal funds.

“We are very pleased that our team was able to provide the strong evidentiary base that enabled a swift law enforcement investigation and led to the employee pleading guilty, as reflected in today’s filing,” Bok told councilors.

Bok also referred to a press statement from a BHA spokesperson that said, “Every dollar that BHA stewards is intended to house low-income residents, and BHA takes our responsibility to safeguard those public funds extremely seriously.

“This employee violated that public trust, but we are proud of how BHA and law enforcement have worked together to achieve restitution in support of our vital public mission.”

A wire fraud charge can lead to a sentence of up to 20 years in prison with a maximum $250,000 fine.