SPRINGFIELD — A former superintendent of schools in Chicopee pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Tuesday to charges of lying to FBI agents who were investigating threats sent via text to a candidate for the city’s police chief.

Lynn Clark, who was a resident of Belchertown at the time of her arrest in April 2022, pleaded guilty to two counts of giving false statements. She will be sentenced in April to one year of probation, according to the terms of the plea agreement, her attorney, Jared Olanoff, said Tuesday.

Olanoff said the plea was a satisfactory resolution to what has been a difficult period for his client.

“It has been a trying time for her,” Olanoff said. “She has lost quite a bit already, but this is one step toward moving on from it.”

A charge of making false statements can carry a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to a year of supervised release and a fine of as much as $10,000.

Chicopee had been in the process of hiring a new chief in December 2021 when law enforcement learned that a candidate for the job was receiving threats intended to force him to withdraw his application, according to the criminal complaint.

“The victim received numerous text messages from unknown numbers containing threats to expose information that would cause the victim reputational harm,” the U.S. attorney’s office stated at the time. “As a result, the victim withdrew their application, and the city delayed the selection process.”

Prosecutors identified the victim only as Individual 1. They said he had received 99 threatening text messages from fictitious numbers purchased online.

Prosecutors said Clark initially lied to investigators, saying she had nothing to do with the texts, and casting suspicion instead on other city employees, the candidate’s colleagues and a member of her own family. Two months later, after being confronted with evidence linking her to purchase of the numbers through a mobile phone “burner app,” she admitted to sending the texts, including some sent to herself with the aim of throwing investigators off.

“She felt if Individual 1 became Police Chief, it could negatively impact Clark’s position as Superintendent of Chicopee Schools,” the complaint stated. “Clark felt Individual 1 had achieved many accomplishments based on Clark’s work; and Clark wanted Individual 1 to get ‘knocked down a peg.’”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil L. Desroches prosecuted the case. A message left with the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston was not returned Tuesday.