Apart from being charged with one count of causing to make $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Long's campaign, D'Souza was also charged with one count of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission in connection with the illegal campaign contributions.

Under the plea agreement, the prosecutors would dismiss the false statements count when D'Souza is sentenced.

Last week, Berman had denied a pretrial motion by D'Souza to dismiss the indictment.

D'Souza had alleged that he was being targetted for "selective prosecution" since he had been a critic of Obama.

Bermna had ruled that there was "no evidence" to support D'Souza's allegation that he was being prosecuted because of his outspoken criticisms of the President.

"Following the court's ruling denying Dinesh D'Souza's baseless claim of selective prosecution, D'Souza now has admitted, through his guilty plea, what we have asserted all along - that he knowingly and intentionally violated federal election laws," Mr Bharara said in a statement.

D'Souza's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said that "Given the technical nature of the charge, there was no viable defense."

"We are hopeful that Judge Berman will recognize D'Souza to be a fundamentally honorable man who should not be imprisoned for what was an isolated instance of wrongdoing in an otherwise productive and responsible life," he said.

Long, who has been a friend of D'Souza's from their college days at Dartmouth in the 1980s, issued a statement after learning about D'Souza's plea and said she was "heartbroken" about the case.

D'Souza, who is also a best-selling conservative author, had come in for severe criticism for his 2012 documentary '2016: Obama's America', a documentary that had equated reelection of Obama with the death and dismemberment of the US and had been running at number three on the top movies list when it was released.

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