{"id":283058,"date":"2026-09-10T15:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/283058\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:24:13","slug":"police-lehigh-county-commissioner-illegally-accessed-police-database","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/283058\/","title":{"rendered":"Police: Lehigh County commissioner illegally accessed police database"},"content":{"rendered":"

Embattled Lehigh County Commissioner Zachary Cole-Borghi is facing a new criminal charge in Northampton County, where Bethlehem police say he used his position as the city\u2019s Right-to-Know officer to access police records<\/a> involving his family members.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi, 36, is charged with unlawful use of a computer, a third-degree felony.<\/p>\n

According to an affidavit filed Wednesday afternoon, the charge came to light when Lehigh County detectives searched Cole-Borghi\u2019s cellphone records during a drug investigation. Cole-Borghi, of Bethlehem, is among more than three dozen people charged last year in a multistate drug operation following a grand jury investigation.<\/p>\n

Authorities in that case say he received more than a pound of marijuana from an informant, an amount that showed that he was dealing the drug, and not buying it for personal use.<\/p>\n

Numerous photos of Bethlehem police reports that he was not permitted to access were found in his iCloud data, according to court records.<\/p>\n

A review of the reports revealed that many involved his family members, including his mother, who was a suspect in multiple theft reports, according to the affidavit. Cole-Borghi allegedly accessed the records in 2022, three years before he was arrested in Lehigh County.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is believed that Zachary Cole Borghi intervened in an official police investigation to keep his mother from being arrested by exceeding his access and authorization to [the police records database],\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem employed Cole-Borghi from March 2022 to August 2025, when he was arrested at City Hall in the Lehigh County case. As the city\u2019s Right-to-Know officer he was only allowed to access records for the purpose of processing Right-to-Know requests, the court records state. Confidential police investigative reports are protected by Pennsylvania\u2019s Criminal History Record Information Act.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi\u2019s attorney, Gary Asteak, was livid when he was informed by a reporter about the Northampton County charges, noting that Cole-Borghi had a court hearing Wednesday morning<\/a> in Lehigh County and the Bethlehem case was never mentioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we appear in court in connection with the original charges against Mr. Cole-Borghi, it seems as though the prosecutors want to file something else against him. It\u2019s just piling on one case after another case, and they seem to think they can bury him in a legal tsunami,\u201d Asteak said.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi was first charged in August 2025 in Lehigh County. Then prosecutors brought more than 100 new charges against him in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Embattled Lehigh County Commissioner Zachary Cole-Borghi is facing a new criminal charge in Northampton County, where Bethlehem police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,2376,202,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-283058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-breaking-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\/283058","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=283058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}