A former Chattanooga City Council member accused of helping to run a large cocaine ring here will plead guilty in a Knoxville federal court, recent filings show.

But several of John P. “Duke” Franklin Jr.’s co-defendants named on the same indictment will enter their guilty pleas locally, weeks before Mr. Franklin is scheduled to appear Nov. 24 in Knoxville before U.S. District Judge R. Leon Jordan.

The case against Mr. Franklin, who resigned from his District 5 council seat in June, has drawn much media scrutiny, although he was just one of 42 people arrested in mid-May. All are accused of — and many already have pleaded guilty to — either running or helping to run a cocaine business that authorities said was responsible for distributing at least 30 kilograms of the drug across Chattanooga on a monthly basis for the last year and a half.

Defense attorney Marty Levitt said Monday that the scheduled plea in Knoxville is one of “convenience,” since another defense attorney involved in Mr. Franklin’s case — Cornel Williams, of Houston — will be traveling from Texas to be present when their client admits his guilt in open court.

While Judge Jordan, of Knoxville, will travel to Chattanooga at the beginning of November to accept the guilty pleas of Mr. Franklin’s co-defendants, the Texas defense lawyer cannot be here at the same time, Mr. Levitt said.

“It was the date that worked out with everyone’s calendar,” Mr. Levitt said of Mr. Franklin’s scheduled Knoxville appearance.

At the time of his arrest in May, Mr. Franklin initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, but he told the court last week that he intended to change that plea.

Neither Mr. Levitt, nor the U.S. attorney’s office, will discuss the details of Mr. Franklin’s plea agreement, such as whether or not the government has decided to drop the most serious charge of money laundering against him.

Those details will be made public in Knoxville at the plea hearing, after which the complete agreement is expected to be made public as well, unless Mr. Franklin’s attorneys ask that it be filed under seal.

In addition to the money laundering charge, which could land Mr. Franklin in a federal prison for 20 years, he is charged with the lesser crimes of conspiring to obstruct justice and providing false statements to federal officials.

Investigators never charged Mr. Franklin with a drug crime, but court documents indicated a vigorous plan of attack by the defense against the government’s allegations that Mr. Franklin helped a co-defendant cover up the origin of almost $70,000 in drug money.

Mr. Levitt sought to have the money laundering charge dismissed based in part on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that narrows the money laundering statute and could make it more difficult to prosecute such cases in the future.

HOW HE GOT CAUGHT

According to the federal indictment, John P. “Duke” Franklin’s co-defendant and friend Michael Kelley needed help concealing the origin of about $70,000 seized during a traffic stop in March by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities say Mr. Franklin made arrangements to have a loan document falsified in order to make the money look legitimate. The FBI, however, already had suspected through months of wiretapping that Mr. Kelley intended to use the money to buy drugs in Atlanta, the indictment states. The arrests of all the drug ring’s players followed in May.