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A Beltsville man pleaded guilty Friday to creating a false government document in an alleged scheme to obtain more than $160,000 from a Hagerstown-based nonprofit.

Robert Dunbebin, 53, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to fraudulently using a government seal on a document. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 14, and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Prosecutors allege that Dunbebin owned a mail sorting and processing company that collected $162,298 in postage and handling costs from a client, only to not send its mail and provide a falsified U.S. Postal Service form claiming it had.

According to prosecutors, Baltimore-based American Mail Sort LLC provided volume mailing services for Review and Herald Publishing Association Inc., a nonprofit publisher affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Dunbebin's company typically picked up materials from the publisher in Hagerstown, prepared them for international shipping and delivered them to USPS facilities for mailing.

Prosecutors said that in 2004, some addresses told the publisher they had not received recently shipped materials. When publishing officials questioned Dunbebin, he insisted the items had been sent, and continued to claim such from January 2004 to December 2005.

Dunbebin went as far as to fax them a copy of what he claimed was a USPS document, dated Sept. 6, 2005, which showed the materials had been brought to a postal facility for shipping.

After receiving a warrant, investigators searched Dunbebin's company headquarters in February 2006 and seized the unsent materials, for which the publisher had paid Dunbebin $162,298 in shipping and handling fees. Investigators also determined he had created the fraudulent form by cutting and attaching a USPS seal from an authentic document.

Investigators returned the unsent materials to the publishing company, and Dunbebin may be ordered at sentencing to pay restitution for shipping costs. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 14.

Dunbebin's attorney, Herbert Better, did not return calls seeking comment.