CHICAGO (STNG) -- Valerie Jones, a former secretary to the head of the city's scandal-plagued Hired Truck program pleaded guilty to lying to a federal grand jury investigating the program.

Jone, 40, could face 10 to 16 months in prison when she is sentenced in January.

Jones admitted in her plea agreement to repeatedly lying to a grand jury in June 2004. She denied having any contact with any vendors in the Hired Truck Program after she left it and said she never saw her boss, Angelo Torres, with an envelope with money in it.

Jones, in fact, had passed a envelope with $1,500 in cash to Torres from a trucking company owner as well as taking cash herself at times, according to her plea agreement.