SARASOTA - The founder of a Sarasota nonprofit has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $76,000 in federal money that was supposed to go to internships for teenagers.

As part of a plea agreement filed Thursday in a federal court in Tampa, Lyndon Jones, executive director of Man Up Inc., admitted to fraudulently double-billing the government for tens of thousands of dollars in wages for teenage interns in his program from 2009 to 2011. The single count of theft of government funds was filed this week, two years after the Sarasota City Commission approved the last grant money for Man Up despite questions about the group’s accounting practices.

Jones started the summer program four years ago to get youth from Newtown and other parts of the city thinking about careers and starting at internships. While organizing job fairs and setting up internships for high school students, Man Up collected more than $100,000 in federal grant money administered by the city, and tens of thousands more from local organizations and donors...