A former Fishers real estate investor has pleaded guilty for his role in a $6.9 million mortgage fraud scheme involving hundreds of Indianapolis houses.

Robert A. Penn, 44, pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He faces sentencing at a later date.

Penn was indicted in July in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy in leading a real estate deal that acquired more than 100 homes in Indianapolis from 2003 to 2005 using straw buyers, inflated prices and bogus appraisals.

The properties were then typically abandoned, with Penn and partners pocketing millions of dollars in gains, the government said.

Among the properties Penn and his partners bought was the entire 184-unit Windsor Village duplex development, near 21st Street and Arlington Avenue.

The deal’s collapse pushed more than 100 homes in the modest Eastside Indianapolis neighborhood into foreclosure. It also energized efforts by the city’s mortgage industry to tighten standards, with mixed success in the Indiana General Assembly.

Under the plea, Penn admitted to fraudulently buying 136 properties for $16.6 million. The fraud loss on the properties was $6.9 million, the government said.

The conspirators bought the homes for $120,000 each in 2005 and later gave the properties up through foreclosures and other means.

Many were seized by lenders and resold at sheriff’s sales in 2007 and 2008 for $3,500 to $26,000, the government said.

Penn was taken into custody by U.S. marshals and awaits sentencing. He had been apprehended this summer while living in Florida.

The case gained national attention in 2006 when the wave of foreclosures hit Windsor Village and it became clear that the deal crossed state boundaries. The architects of the plan had recruited Penn family members in Martinsville, Va., to participate as straw buyers.

In most cases, Penn’s lender was Countrywide Bank, a California-based mortgage lender that ultimately fell apart under a wave of bad loans made nationwide. Countrywide was taken over by Bank of America.