A Mexican national arrested in September for illegally transporting a van load of illegal Asian immigrants faces up to 10 years in prison, a federal judge said Tuesday.

Venancio Perez, 43, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan K. Lee to unlawfully transporting illegal aliens.

Judge Lee said Mr. Perez will be sentenced May 15 before Chief U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier.

Defense attorney Joe Hoffer said seven Chinese nationals were discovered in his client’s van during a traffic stop on Sept. 20, 2007.

Mr. Perez entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors that will allow a second identical charge to be dismissed, he said.

“My client recklessly disregarded that they were aliens,” Mr. Hoffer said.

The Chinese nationals ranged in age from 17 to 31, court records show.

According to an affidavit by federal immigration Agent Mark Eisenbeis, he was called to assist Cleveland, Tenn., police officers, who had stopped Mr. Perez’s vehicle at exit 27 on Interstate 75.

Mr. Perez initially told authorities the occupants were his wife’s relatives, but his wife, Clara Rodriguez, who also was in the vehicle, said she did not know the occupants and was not related to them, records show.

During questioning, Mr. Perez later admitted that he was transporting the Chinese immigrants from Houston to New York for $400 each, the affidavit states.

Mr. Perez said he was contacted by a Cuban or Puerto Rican man and instructed to pick up the immigrants at a hotel in Houston and drive them to New York, Mr. Eisenbeis wrote in an affidavit.

Once in New York, Mr. Perez was supposed to call a telephone number to find out where to deliver them, the affidavit states.

Both Mr. Hoffer and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Anderson declined to say whether Mr. Perez was cooperating and assisting in the arrest and prosecution of the man for whom he was working.

Ms. Rodriguez is in the custody of immigration officials after serving a 3 1/2-month sentence for being in the country illegally. She pleaded guilty in December 2007.