{"id":502727,"date":"2026-10-20T23:40:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T23:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502727\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T23:40:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T23:40:26","slug":"california-mayor-accused-of-following-man-she-mistook-for-ice-agent-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502727\/","title":{"rendered":"California mayor accused of following man she mistook for ICE agent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH)  \u2014 Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco is accused of following a Fresno hairstylist for about 25 minutes and confronting him because she believed he was an immigration agent, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/bml1.co\/t\/v\/84e61db1-3fdc-43f9-a062-915c8cde20fa\/01997283-5f26-d791-c5ac-47a954fa3ae9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">complaints filed with local authorities.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Eric Bridges&#8217; attorney, Roger Bonakdar, said the complaints were submitted Monday to the Fresno Police Department and the Fresno County district attorney\u2019s Public Integrity Unit. They ask authorities to investigate allegations including stalking and false imprisonment. No criminal charges or investigative findings have been announced. <\/p>\n<p>Bridges said the encounter began Oct. 14 near Kearney Park, outside Fresno, when an orange vehicle began following him. He alleged the driver photographed his white Mercedes, blocked him in and continued following him into Fresno, eventually confronting him outside his sister\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p><p>Surveillance video: Kerman mayor accused of stalking man mistaken for ICE agent  (Courtesy Roger Bonakdar)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>According to Bridges&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/d1sldxm8kemt77.cloudfront.net\/images\/24eadefb-87d3-473a-a116-af024887ee28\/Signed%20Statement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">written statement<\/a>, the driver told him, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about who I am, I\u2019m someone important,\u201d and, \u201cI\u2019m looking for ICE and you look like ICE.\u201d Bridges said he later identified the driver as Pacheco after reviewing surveillance footage. KMPH reported that the footage shows the vehicles near the home where Bridges says he was confronted. <\/p>\n<p>Bridges\u2019 attorney said his client has never worked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security and has received threats from people who believe he is connected to ICE. Bonakdar said Bridges has also been told he is not welcome at his grandchildren\u2019s soccer games. <\/p>\n<p>The allegations came six days after Pacheco sent KMPH a video of herself confronting someone she identified as an ICE agent in Kerman. The video had received about 98,000 views on Facebook, the station reported. Pacheco is also running for Fresno County supervisor. <\/p>\n<p>KMPH said it contacted Pacheco for comment but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) \u2014 Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco is accused of following a Fresno hairstylist for about 25&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-502727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}