VALPARAISO | A Lake Station man faces no more than 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty Monday to driving drunk, killing a pedestrian and fleeing the scene in Portage nearly two years ago.

Rudolph Ortega II, 25, pleaded guilty to the most serious of the 10 charges facing him in return for prosecutors dropping the balance of the counts and capping the potential sentence.

Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Bennett said most of the charges were differing versions of the same offense, and Ortega could only have been convicted of one anyway.

Porter Superior Judge Roger Bradford took the deal under consideration and scheduled sentencing for 1 p.m. March 20.

Portage police said Ortega ran over and killed Angelica Gonzalez, 41, of Joliet, Ill. at 2:10 a.m. March 10, 2007 while she was standing outside a truck on the north side of Central Avenue, near County Line Road.

The victim had just helped her boyfriend and her father push her stalled vehicle into the parking lot at a Speedway station and was outside her boyfriend's truck when she was hit by a westbound mini-van, police said.

Police said witness Nealy Wallace followed Ortega to Draft House Bar in Lake Station. Wallace's passenger, Nina Parks, got out to try to keep Ortega from driving off, but Ortega struck her leg with his vehicle and continued westbound on Central Avenue, police said.

Wallace told police Ortega continued westbound, struck a telephone pole and kept driving. Lake Station police caught up with him and arrested him near Central Avenue and Putnam Street

Police said a blood test showed Ortega's blood-alcohol concentration was 0.22, nearly three times the 0.08 standard of intoxication in Indiana.