FORT WORTH, Texas - Bill Keating, Montague County's former sheriff who faced up to a decade in federal prison for a sexual assault and was accused in a jail sex scandal, has died at 62.

Keating, who lived near Forestburg, about 60 miles northwest of Fort Worth, apparently died of a heart attack, his attorney, Mark Daniel, told The Associated Press on Friday.

Autopsy results were pending, but it appears Keating died of natural causes, said Montague County Chief Deputy J.T. Mitchell.

In January, he pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation that accused him of telling a woman she would go to jail on a drug charge unless she had sex with him.

In February, Keating was indicted on charges of official oppression and having sex with female inmates. The 106-count indictment involved 17 people, mostly former jailers charged with having sex with inmates or giving them drugs and cell phones.