A Lehigh County defense attorney says he and others are furious, after prosecutors in a major drug ring case asked a judge to skip over a standard part of the legal process.<\/p>\n
The years-long investigation led to dozens now facing charges, including Lehigh County commissioner Zach Cole-Borghi.<\/p>\n
“It has been three and a half months since his arrest and the prosecution is still cloaked in secrecy,” Gary Asteak, who serves as Cole-Borghi’s defense attorney, said.<\/p>\n
A large, multi-state drug bust this past summer<\/a>\u00a0leaves 41 facing accusations, including Cole-Borghi.<\/p>\n Cole-Borghi’s defense attorney says prosecutors are throwing a wrench in his plans, asking the judge to bypass a preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n But Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan says prosecutors are trying to keep certain information confidential.<\/p>\n “I know some of the defendants and the defense attorneys are unhappy with the process,” Holihan said, “but the process is legal. It is following due process in our system.”<\/p>\n Holihan says a preliminary hearing could hurt the case, by revealing secret information to the public.<\/p>\n “We have people who are willing to come forward as confidential informants and give us information and testify under oath in front of a grand jury,” he said. “We’d like to protect them as much as we can.”<\/p>\n Of the 41 accused, a handful have not waived their preliminary hearings. County Commissioner Cole-Borghi is one of them. His attorney, Asteak, says the preliminary hearing is needed to test out evidence in a public forum, cross-examine witnesses and hear testimony.<\/p>\n “The law allows us a preliminary hearing,” Asteak said. “We should have one so the public and Zach’s constituents know exactly what he’s been accused of.”<\/p>\n Though Cole-Borghi is facing some charges, unlike most, he’s not accused with corrupt organizations or being a part of the criminal conspiracy. He is charged with possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver and possession of marijuana, which he has denied.<\/p>\n Asteak says the commissioner’s case is an “outlier,” and he argues it should not have been a part of the grand jury investigation.<\/p>\n He says he was counting on the preliminary hearing, to learn more information, and build up a case for his client.<\/p>\n “We don’t know who his accuser is, we don’t know what evidence, what witnesses the commonwealth has against him,” he said. “What do they have to hide?”<\/p>\n The commissioner, who also served as Bethlehem’s right-to-know officer up until the investigation unfolded<\/a>\u00a0has been serving the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners since 2021, and was re-elected to the position after his arrest, this past November<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 16. While a date hasn’t yet been set for a hearing on the motion for an administrative bypass, Holihan says it should be decided by that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lehigh County defense attorney says he and others are furious, after prosecutors in a major drug ring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-58542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-allentown-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58542","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=58542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}