PROVIDENCE — A Warwick man accused of posing as a federal Homeland Security agent to extort $25,000 from a gas station owner of Middle Eastern descent pleaded guilty yesterday to two felony charges that will land him in prison for at least a few years.

George Tabora, 45, of 1579 Centerville Rd., appeared subdued as he stood before U.S. District Judge William E. Smith and admitted that he arranged and participated in the plot with his son last spring.

The only fact that Tabora disputed was the amount that he was attempting to extort. He claimed he was seeking only $15,000, instead of the $25,000 figure that federal prosecutors have repeatedly cited.

Tom Connell, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, said the government continues to maintain that Tabora was seeking $25,000. Either way, the amount Tabora sought has no bearing on the penalty he faces when he is sentenced Dec. 21.

Yesterday’s plea came on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City that killed approximately 3,000 people.

Tabora faces up to 23 years in prison — 20 on the extortion charge and 3 years for impersonating a federal agent. He also could be fined up to $500,000.

At yesterday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee H. Vilker provided the court with a detailed summary of what he said investigators would have proven had the case gone to trial.

Last May, Vilker said that Tabora, posing as Homeland Security Officer Carl Johnson, called the gas station owner and told him that he had information that would link him to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.

Vilker said that Tabora demanded $25,000, and that if he didn’t pay, “he would go after [the gas station owner’s] wife and two daughters and put [him] in jail.”

The gas station owner, who was not identified, went to the Warwick police. Tabora continued to place threatening calls and demanded the money in exchange for a purported government file and compact disc he had with information on the gas station owner.

The Warwick police monitored many of the calls. Finally, at the direction of Warwick detectives, the gas station owner agreed to pay Tabora $15,000. He told him to stuff the money in a drainpipe on property next door to his home on Centerville Road.

On May 16, Warwick police arranged for the gas station owner to make the dropoff. Moments later, the police videotaped Tabora’s teenage son, Nicholas, retrieving the package from the drainpipe.

When confronted by detectives, the younger Tabora told them that his father asked him to pick up the money. He was not charged with any crimes.

George Tabora pursed his lips and bowed his head yesterday as the prosecutor detailed Nicholas Tabora’s role in the scheme.

Vilker, the prosecutor, said that the elder Tabora was arrested the same day and he admitted making the threatening calls and orchestrating the scheme.

After the hearing, Tabora was allowed to walk out of the courtroom. In the courthouse foyer, he slipped a navy windbreaker over his head and tightly tied the hood, covering most of his face. He dashed out the door and into a pouring rain in Kennedy Plaza. He waited for a bus to take him back to his mobile home in Warwick.

bmalinow@projo.com