A Hawaii inmate who authorities say is a high-ranking member of the prison gang USO Family has agreed to plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

Opherro Jones is not the first one of 17 alleged USO members charged with racketeering to plead guilty. However, he is the first to agree to cooperate with the government.

USO, which state prison officials say is the dominant prison gang among Hawaii inmates, is the abbreviation for United Samoan Organization. "Uso" also means brother in Samoan.

Jones, 39, admitted that he is a member of USO and that he conspired to bribe prison guards to smuggle contraband, including cigarettes and methamphetamine, into Halawa Correctional Facility.

"I was in USO and I bribed the guards," Jones said in U.S. District Court Friday.

He also admitted to conspiring with another inmate in a false tax return and refund scheme.

Jones faces a maximum 20-year prison term at sentencing in July.

He was serving a 10-year state prison term for kidnapping, robbery, burglary and using a firearm to commit the robbery when a federal grand jury returned a racketeering indictment last September against him, 16 other Hawaii inmates and a former state prison guard. Jones is now in custody at the Federal Detention Center.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Nammar told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin S.C. Chang that Jones bribed former state adult correctional officers Feso Malufau, John Joseph Kalei Hall and Mark Damas.

Malufau, 54, was indicted with the 17 alleged USO Family members last September.

Hall, 39, pleaded guilty last August to smuggling cigarettes into Halawa and selling them to inmates. He is serving a 13-month federal prison term.

However, the government filed court papers earlier this month to reduce Hall’s sentence.

FBI agents and state sheriff deputies arrested Damas at Halawa in January. Damas, 45, is awaiting trial for bribery, conspiracy and distribution of methamphetamine.

Another former prison guard, James Sanders III, 31, pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges that he distributed methamphetamine and accepted $5,000 to smuggle contraband into Halawa. He, too, has agreed to cooperate with the government.

Nammar also said Jones received fraudulent tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service for the tax years 2006 through 2010 and that the money was used to bribe the prison guards.

The other admitted USO members who have pleaded guilty are Akoni Davis, Moses Thompson, Vaopele Iiga, Travis Nishioka and David Kahui.

Davis, 25, and Nishioka, 25, pleaded guilty to participating in a Feb. 17, 2013, assault of a fellow Halawa inmate as an initiation to join USO. Jones was charged with participating in the same assault but the government agreed to drop the charge as part of its plea deal with Jones.

Thompson, 35, and Iiga, 36, pleaded guilty to assaulting a prison guard at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., on July 26, 2010, when the guard tried to intervene in a gang fight. Thompson, Iiga and others who participated in the assault have all pleaded guilty in Arizona state court and must serve their Arizona prison terms after they complete their Hawaii sentences.

Kahui, 34, admitted that he conspired with another inmate to receive fraudulent tax returns for 2009 and 2010 and that the money was used to purchase cigarettes and methamphetamine and to bribe prison guards.