A former Home Depot manager plans to plead guilty to wire fraud and other charges in an international scheme to make money by connecting foreign flooring suppliers with buyers who chose products for the giant retailer, his lawyer said Thursday.

Anthony Tesvich, 42, will plead guilty in the case, said Brian Steel, one of his attorneys.

Tesvich appeared briefly Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Gerrilyn Brill, who bound the case over to U.S. District Judge Richard Story.

Tesvich, who was fired by the home improvement chain in 2005, allegedly funneled money for cars and house renovations to two buyers.

What prosecutors say happened at Atlanta-based Home Depot is an example of the cutthroat nature of gaining what's considered prime real estate in the retail industry: big-box shelf space.

A civil complaint filed Jan. 8 by U.S. Attorney David Nahmias in Atlanta detailed how the government believes Tesvich, a former store manager who left Home Depot in 2005, masterminded a scheme to hook up flooring suppliers from China, Taiwan, India, Turkey and Venezuela with Ronald K. Johnston, a tile buyer, and James P. Robinson, a rug buyer.

Attorneys for the former Home Depot managers declined early on to comment.

Court documents named only Johnston and Robinson, although the company has said that two other Home Depot headquarters employees were fired last year. Tesvich also was named in the filings.

The documents alleged that Tesvich, a 19-year Home Depot veteran, may have made millions of dollars by being a middleman between overseas suppliers and Robinson and Johnston.

A product buyer's job is to travel overseas to develop relationships with vendors with lower cost, high-quality products. The buyers determine which products make it to Home Depot's shelves.

Prosecutors allege Tesvich organized a scheme that worked like this: After being fired from Home Depot in 2005, Tesvich, a former global product buyer, set up U.S. companies to represent seven foreign flooring manufacturers.

Money from his companies, prosecutors say, was used to pay for Robinson's cars and Johnston's home improvements in return for millions of dollars in flooring orders for the manufcturers.