ALBANY — George “Chris” Ortloff, a longtime state legislator and more recently a member of the state Parole Board, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to online enticement of minors.

Sentencing was scheduled for April 23. Ortloff, who is married and has two grown children, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life. He could also be fined $250,000.

Ortloff, 61, of Plattsburgh, admitted Wednesday before Judge Thomas J. McAvoy that he used the telephone and a number of Internet service providers, including AOL, to communicate with minors. Between June and October, he communicated with a woman he thought was the mother of two girls in Albany County. In fact, he was actually conversing with undercover agents with the New York State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and knowingly misrepresented his identity.

During their conversations, he was informed that the “minors” were 11 and 12 years old, and he discussed engaging in various sexual acts with them. He also said that he would like to meet these minors for the purpose of engaging in, among other things, intercourse, oral sex and masturbation, according to court papers.

He eventually said that he was interested in meeting the minors to engage in sexual acts, and a meeting was arranged by Ortloff at an unidentified hotel in Colonie. He drove to the hotel on Oct. 13 to meet the minors to engage in sex, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

He brought two vibrators, lubricant and condoms to the hotel, according to state police who were at the hotel to arrest him.

Ortloff’s laptop computer, which was used to communicate with the minors, was seized from his hotel room with a warrant.

Also confiscated was a webcam that Ortloff had previously given the undercover investigator in an attempt to communicate with the minors. A digital camera and a flash drive were also recovered from the hotel room.

According to court records, in August 2008 Ortloff acknowledged to an undercover agent that what he was doing was not legal and that was why it was necessary to ensure he was not walking into a trap or being “set up.”

Neither Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Spina Jr. nor Ortloff’s attorney, Andrew Safranko, could be reached on Wednesday to comment.

Ortloff represented the North Country’s 110th Assembly District from 1986 until 2006, when Gov. George Pataki appointed him to the Parole Board. In that position, he interviewed inmates before voting whether to authorize their release. He was paid $102,000 a year but resigned after his arrest.

The case was investigated by the state police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Computer Crimes Unit, with assistance from the state police Special Investigations Unit, state police investigators working in the Ray Brook, Plattsburgh and Loudonville stations and the state attorney general’s pffice.