WASHINGTON (AP) — A former executive in Morgan Stanley's real estate business in China faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in Brooklyn to scheming to skirt the investment firm's controls against foreign bribery to enrich himself and a Chinese government official.

 

The Justice Department said Garth Peterson, a former Morgan Stanley managing director, pled guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, located in Downtown Brooklyn.

 

Peterson secretly acquired millions of dollars' worth of real estate investments for himself and the official, according to Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Peterson also settled related civil charges filed by the SEC by paying about $250,000 in restitution and relinquishing his interest in the Shanghai real estate that he allegedly acquired with gains from the scheme.

 

That's on top of a maximum criminal fine of $250,000.