NEW YORK -- A Harvard-educated former analyst with Goldman Sachs pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping orchestrate a sprawling insider trading scheme that earned $6.7 million by using secret grand jury testimony, information about upcoming corporate mergers and stolen copies of Businessweek magazine, authorities said.

Eugene Plotkin, 28, apologized in Manhattan Federal Court and agreed to forfeit the millions he made in the yearlong scam in exchange for a likely prison sentence of up to six years instead of the maximum 165 years he was facing if convicted, officials said.

"Words can't express how sorry I am for the harm I have caused to others, especially my family," said Plotkin, who lives in Rockland County. "I understood what I did was wrong and against the law."

Prosecutors said two of Plotkin's key accomplices have already pleaded guilty: Stanislav Shpigelman, 24, of Brooklyn, a Harvard buddy who had worked as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Merrill Lynch and David Pajcin, another former analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Plotkin pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Debra Freeman to one count of conspiring to commit insider trading and multiple counts of insider trading. He admitted trading on insider information about six pending mergers and acquisitions handled by Merrill Lynch, according to Michael Garcia, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Plotkin also admitted that he helped bribe workers at a Wisconsin printing plant to steal copies of Businessweek so he could trade on tips in its "Inside Wall Street" column before the magazine was released. In a third scheme, Plotkin said he used secret information about Bristol-Myers Squibb that came from a grand juror in New Jersey hearing an accounting fraud investigation involving the company, the U.S. Attorney said.

Plotkin is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 30.