Published March 7, 2011

One of the co-defendants in former House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s federal corruption case is expected to plead guilty tomorrow.

Joseph Lally Jr. will plead guilty to eight of nine charges leveled against him, including conspiracy, extortion and fraud.

Under the terms of the plea deal, Lally will serve two to three years in prison and cooperate with authorities investigating the case. The deal says Lally must provide prosecutors with any assistance requested, including testimony at trial.

Lally was the salesman who sold two multimillion-dollar Cognos software contracts to the state, allegedly with DiMasi’s help. Federal prosecutors are trying to prove DiMasi received nearly $60,000 in payments for encouraging approval of the software deals.

— Here’s the plea deal (on Scribd):