Men stand in a U.S. Immigration and Border Enforcement detention center in McAllen, Texas, Friday, July 12, 2019, during a visit by Vice President Mike Pence. (Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)

A South Texas immigration attorney has pleaded not guilty in federal court to criminal charges that he bribed immigration detention employees to obtain “alien detainee roster lists” for cash payments, with the goal of using the information to solicit clients.

Roel Alanis, 39, of the Alanis Law Firm in Weslaco, appeared in court Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ignacio Torteya III in Brownsville to enter a plea on the seven charges in the indictment, which was unsealed Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors claim that from February 2018 to February 2019 Alanis paid money to co-conspirators in return for receiving the detainee rosters. It claims he would visit or instruct others to visit detainees “for the purpose of hiring Alanis' law firm as their attorney in immigration proceedings.”

The government charged Alanis with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and six counts of bribery of a public official.

According to the indictment, Alanis conspired with two employees at the Willacy County Regional Detention Center—clerk Benito Barrientez and senior program director Damian Ortiz—and with Exy Adelaida Gomez, a detention officer at the El Valle Detention Center. Both detention centers are located in Raymondville in the Rio Grande Valley.

The three detention center workers were indicted separately in May. Each has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and bribery charges.

In United States of America v. Alanis, the government alleges that Alanis' three co-conspirators would obtain detainee rosters from the El Valle Detention Center and the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Barrientez and Ortiz would provide them to Alanis or others directed by him, and Alanis would pay Ortiz and Barrientez.

“Roel Alanis would provide Ortiz and Barrientez money to pay other conspirators who also provided detainee rosters. Roel Alanis or others at his direction would then visit alien immigrant detainees at detention facilities seeking employment in immigration matters,” the government alleges in the indictment.

Payments ranged from $200 to $1,000, according to the indictment.

The detainee rosters contained law enforcement data including names, dates of birth, country of origin, “A-numbers,” which are used to locate a detainee, and housing assignments.

Alanis' attorney, Abasi Daudi Major, a criminal defense attorney at Goldstein, Goldstein, Hilley & Orr in San Antonio, could not be immediately reached for comment.

If convicted, Alanis faces up to 15 years for bribery and up to five years on the conspiracy charge, plus a potential penalty of $250,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.

The immigration attorney graduated from St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio in 2015.