Skip to content

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Because no one
is above the law!

Donate

Corruption Chronicles

Judge Sets Low Bond For Corrupt Mayor Friend

 

The judge who set the bond amount for an Arizona mayor at the center of a corruption scandal failed to disclose that she’s friends with the disgraced lawmaker, whose bail has subsequently been revoked by a higher court.

Prior to the bail fiasco, the case made national headlines this week because the magnitude of corruption is unusually large for a small U.S. town (Nogales) of about 20,000 residents. The city’s handsome young mayor, 29-year-old Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel, has been charged with multiple counts of bribery, theft, fraud and money laundering. The mayor’s father has also been charged with similar crimes.

Garcia-Von Borstel solicited bribes from Nogales businesses in exchange for his influence in obtaining city contracts, prosecutors say. The mayor’s father, an agent for Western Union, is accused of fraudulently reporting money orders worth $3.2 million that were cashed by the mayor and deposited into an account he controlled. The father and son withdrew more than half a million dollars from the account before it was frozen by authorities.

The small-town mayor’s lavish lifestyle drew attention because he only made $50 a month and had no other job. Earlier this year Garcia-Von Borstel got in trouble for charging trips to Las Vegas and Mexico on his city-issued credit card, which was subsequently revoked by the Nogales City Council. The unscrupulous mayor was also stripped of a city-owned sports utility vehicle that had been assigned to him upon taking office in 2007.

Garcia-Von Borstel’s bail was originally set at $250,000, even though prosecutors had requested more than double that amount. Before the bond was posted news reports surfaced of a conflict involving the judge who set the lower bond amount. It turns out that she had previously recused herself from a traffic case involving the mayor because they are friends. Prosecutors appealed to a superior court which temporarily revoked the bail until another hearing is scheduled.


 


Related

VP’s Failed Initiative to Curb Irregular Migration Gets Another $170 Mil as Numbers Surge

Corruption Chronicles | March 28, 2024
As enormous amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars pour into Central America under Vice President Kamala Harris’s ill-fated initiative to curb illegal immigration, the Biden administrati...

Judicial Watch: Federal Appeals Court Hearing in Lawsuit Challenging Illinois Counting Ballots up to…

Press Releases | March 27, 2024
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that an appellate oral argument is set for Thursday, March 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case fil...

Judicial Watch Sues to Get 911 Call, Arrest Report of Laken Riley’s Murder

In The News | March 27, 2024
From Breitbart: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton announced a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit against the University of Georgia (UGA) Police Department to get the 911 call made ...