A former executive at Westlake Village-based Homestore Inc. pleaded guilty Thursday to his role in a 2001 accounting scandal, averting a lengthy criminal trial, prosecutors said.

Peter Tafeen, 36, admitted that he took part in a scheme to inflate the online real estate firm’s revenue by $160 million and hide it from the company’s auditors, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement.

Tafeen pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and faces up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said. He is the 10th Homestore executive to plead guilty to taking part in a fraudulent scheme to inflate the firm’s stock price by pumping up its advertising revenue.

Late last month, Homestore reached a settlement with Tafeen, a former executive vice president of business development, to cap his legal fees at $11.9 million. The company reached a similar agreement last year with Stuart Wolff, the firm’s former chairman and chief executive, who is expected to go on trial later this month.

Homestore recently changed its name to Move Inc. to better reflect its online real estate business and put the accounting scandal behind it.