{"id":56518,"date":"2025-12-09T20:35:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56518\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T20:35:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:35:27","slug":"docket-unsealed-for-lehigh-county-commissioner-charged-info-still-scarce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56518\/","title":{"rendered":"Docket unsealed for Lehigh County Commissioner charged, info still scarce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some documents related to the arrest of a Lehigh County commissioner and several others are publicly available, yet details remain unclear.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Zachary Cole-Borghi was among more than two dozen people arrested in a large-scale drug investigation<\/a> in August. However, criminal case dockets in many of those cases remained unavailable until a Lehigh County judge ordered late last month that they be unsealed.<\/p>\n

The ruling came after The Morning Call, Lehigh Valley News and Lehigh Valley Live<\/a>, represented by the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press, jointly petitioned the court to intervene in the cases to make them public record.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi\u2019s docket has been made public, yet the affidavit of probable cause, which would detail the allegations against him, refers only to a grand jury presentment. That presentment remains sealed as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Lehigh County Clerk of Courts.<\/p>\n

Cole-Borghi remains charged with felony drug possession with intent to deliver and a misdemeanor of possessing a controlled substance. He has denied the charges, and is free on $50,000 bail.<\/p>\n

When the arrests were initially announced, Cole-Borghi was the only one identified. Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said it was done to dispel rumors that Cole-Borghi played a large role in the criminal operation. Cole-Borghi was taken into custody at Bethlehem City Hall, where he had been employed as the city\u2019s Right to Know officer until his arrest.<\/p>\n

Judge Thomas Caffrey ordered the dockets unsealed late last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The charges announced over the summer followed a three-year grand jury investigation into an alleged interstate drug ring.<\/p>\n

Investigators discovered two \u201cclandestine\u201d labs manufacturing THC, seized more than $100,000 and more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana, cocaine, pills and at least 25 firearms, according to officials. The investigation spanned four states.<\/p>\n

The three media outlets have identified 32 people arrested in the case. A few of them, including Cole-Borghi, have their preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some documents related to the arrest of a Lehigh County commissioner and several others are publicly available, yet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,46,182,139,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-56518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56518","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=56518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}