A 16th person pleaded guilty in the Enron debacle Thursday in yet another scheme to inflate the company's earnings.

According to the Justice Department, Christopher Calger, a former Enron vice president, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Calger, 39, of Westport, Conn., has agreed to cooperate with the government, the department said.

He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, and will likely be sentenced when all the cases are finished, possibly in 2006.

The government said in a statement that Calger was a vice president in charge of the West Power Origination group of Enron North America.

He negotiated the sale of a project called Coyote Springs II that involved equity interest in a power plant, a construction contract to build the plant and a turbine to be placed in the plant, the statement also said.

Calger admitted that he and others engaged in a scheme to recognize earnings prematurely and improperly, the government said.

Calger's attorney could not be reached for comment.

To get around requirements set by outside auditors, Enron allegedly arranged for LJM2, a side company run by former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, to provide help in the charade.

That alleged scheme is related to what the prosecutors call the "global galactic" agreement, a handwritten memo detailing secret side deals between former Enron Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey and Fastow.

In seven different deals, it guaranteed Fastow-controlled LJM entities as much as $50 million from Enron.

The Enron Task Force declined to comment while the case is ongoing.

But under Calger's agreement to cooperate with the government, the former vice president could presumably be called to testify in the January trial against former Enron Chairman Ken Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and Causey.