Former D.C. Councilmember Michael A. Brown will plead guilty to bribery charges after being caught in a sting operation carried out by undercover federal agents, he told his political supporters last night. News that Brown, 48, will offer the plea was first reported last night by WUSA’s Bruce Johnson and later confirmed by The Washington Post.

Details of the federal investigation that landed Brown in trouble are still murky. But on a conference call with his supporters last night, the Post reports, Brown described accepting payments from FBI agents posing as businessmen applying for the District’s “certified business enterprise” program, which gives preferences to small, local, woman-, or minority-owned firms in awarding city government contracts.

Brown, son of late Commerce Secretary and Democratic Party official Ron Brown, held one of the Council’s four at-large seats from 2009 to January. Because of Council’s rules, he held that seat as an independent.

According to the Post, Ron Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is expected to file the charges soon, possibly as early as Friday. Brown will become the third current or former member of the D.C. Council in the last 18 months to face federal charges. Harry Thomas Jr., who represented Ward 5, pleaded guilty in January 2012 to stealing $353,000 in District funds earmarked for youth sports and is currently serving a 38-month prison sentence. Former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown pleaded guilty last June to bank fraud charges and recently completed six months of house arrest.

This is not Brown’s first run-in with federal charges. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to making $4,000 in illegal contributions to the 1998 campaign of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Brown’s re-election campaign last year was saddled by a campaign finance debacle in which he reported that nearly $114,000 went missing from the campaign’s accounts. Brown accused his former campaign treasurer, Hakim Sutton, of withdrawing the missing money, though no charges have been filed in that case.

Brown lost that election to David Grosso. He attempted a comeback earlier this year as a candidate—this time as a Democrat—in the April 23 special election. Despite having more name recognition than the other candidates in the race, he dropped out with three weeks to go, citing “personal and family matters that require my immediate attention.”