{"id":159870,"date":"2026-04-07T22:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159870\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:09:09","slug":"zachary-cole-borghi-posted-50000-bail-awaits-trial-on-drug-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159870\/","title":{"rendered":"Zachary Cole-Borghi posted $50,000 bail, awaits trial on drug charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zachary Cole-Borghi, the Lehigh County Commissioner accused of more than 100 drug-related crimes<\/a>, was released on bail Tuesday. Court records show that a family member put up real estate as collateral for Cole-Borghi\u2019s $50,000 bond.<\/p>\n

His attorney, Gary Asteak, said Cole-Borghi is glad to be out so that he can work on clearing his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cZach, as a county commissioner, had the unique opportunity to observe the Lehigh County Prison from the inside. Now he\u2019s anxious to proceed, to defend himself, from the outside,\u201d Asteak said.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi, 35, of Bethlehem, is among more than three dozen people charged in a multistate drug operation following a grand jury investigation. At his preliminary hearing last week, a police informant testified that he delivered a pound of marijuana to Cole-Borghi in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n

Detectives say Cole-Borghi\u2019s text messages show that he made numerous drug transactions in locations across the Lehigh Valley, including a commissioner\u2019s meeting and while attending the Peace and Justice Symposium in March 2025 at Northampton Community College.<\/p>\n

The Lehigh County commissioners meet Wednesday night. Cole-Borghi is still on the board, according to the county website. Several of his fellow commissioners have urged him to step down<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zachary Cole-Borghi, the Lehigh County Commissioner accused of more than 100 drug-related crimes, was released on bail Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,202,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-159870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}