Kansas City, Kan. ? A Johnson County man has pleaded guilty to threatening to release a videotape of another man with a prostitute at a motel unless the victim paid $50,000.

Max A. Hundley, 46, of Mission, was arrested in January after the 63-year-old victim dropped a fake bag of money from a highway overpass onto railroad tracks near a Mexican restaurant west of downtown Kansas City, Mo.

Hundley, whose criminal record includes first-degree murder, pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion by threatening to injure another person’s reputation.

U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia set sentencing for June 25. Hundley faces maximum penalties of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Hundley’s co-defendant, 65-year-old Ivon E. Yates of Ellington, Mo., is awaiting trial.

The investigation began Jan. 20 when the victim, a married man whose name has not been released, told an FBI agent he had been receiving telephone calls for more than a month from people claiming to have a tape showing him participating in an affair with a prostitute who used the name “Traycee Eros.”

The victim said the callers threatened to destroy his and his family’s reputation and demanded $50,000 to withhold the tape.

Investigators determined the calls were placed from pay phones at nearly a dozen separate businesses in Kansas and Missouri. Some of the calls were recorded, and agents were able to observe some being made from phones on both sides of the state line.