San Diego

A Border Patrol officer pleaded guilty Monday to transporting an illegal alien into the country and escaping from the Border Patrol after his arrest.

U.S. District Judge Earl Gilliam scheduled a Jan. 4 sentencing for Martin Nava, 27, of Chula Vista, who remains free on $100,000 bail.

Five other counts of transporting illegal aliens will be dismissed in return for the guilty plea, along with single counts of harboring an illegal alien and making false statements to a federal officer.

Nava was arrested June 25 after Border Patrol agents stopped him in a rental car on a farm road about six miles east of the San Ysidro border crossing. Nava, who was off duty and out of uniform at the time, was accompanied by an 18-year-old Mexican.

The agents initially let them go after Nava said the woman was his girlfriend and they were in the area to test fire his new pistol. When the agents followed tire tracks from his car to a large gap in the border fence, however, they turned around and stopped him again.

Nava was taken to the agency’s Brown Field Detention Station for further investigation, but he escaped three hours later. He was arrested July 17 at the home of a friend. Nava faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.