The mayor of the small Central Valley farm town of Kerman faces legal complaints and allegations of stalking after allegedly tailing a Fresno hairdresser for more than 20 minutes while searching for federal immigration agents. The incident follows a separate, widely shared social media video in which Mayor Maria Pacheco confronted masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during an early-morning operation outside a local bakery.
Eric Bridges, a Fresno hairdresser, submitted a signed statement to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office detailing an encounter on the afternoon of October 14. According to the statement, Bridges was driving near Kearney Park west of Fresno when he noticed an orange Nissan Altima quickly pull behind him and follow him into the park. Bridges wrote that the vehicle circled him for five minutes while he was on the phone with his sister, and that he could overhear the driver speaking on her vehicle’s speaker system.
Bridges drove to his sister’s neighborhood, where the car tailed him into a cul-de-sac and stopped beside his white Mercedes SUV, an interaction captured by a home security camera. When the female driver rolled down her window, Bridges asked who she was. According to the statement, the driver told him he was in her neighborhood driving an unmarked car. When Bridges asked if she was a police officer or a Department of Motor Vehicles employee—pointing out a DMV print-out affixed to his vehicle—she replied, “Don’t worry about who I am; I’m someone important,” and accused him of being an ICE agent.
Outraged, Bridges began filming the encounter. Home security footage and close-up video recorded by Bridges show the driver smiling as she departs, while Bridges shouts in surprise and expresses disbelief at being mistaken for federal immigration enforcement. Bridges wrote that the driver flipped him off as she left, and that he later learned she was the mayor of Kerman after reviewing the footage.
Roger Bonakdar, an attorney representing Bridges, told reporters that his client is a grandfather and hair stylist who has never worked for ICE or the Department of Homeland Security. Bonakdar noted that at the time of the incident, Bridges was not wearing a face covering, tactical vest, or badge, which immigration agents frequently wear. Bonakdar added that Bridges is a thin-framed, middle-aged Black gay man and asserted that Pacheco used his client as a “political trampoline” to generate social media clickbait for her current campaign for a seat on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
Bonakdar said he filed formal complaints regarding the incident with both the Fresno Police Department and the county prosecutor. Taylor Long, a spokesperson for the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, confirmed that the information provided by Bonakdar was referred to the agency’s Public Integrity Unit, which investigates public officials for potential crimes related to their office. Long emphasized that receiving and reviewing information does not mean a crime occurred or that charges were warranted, and noted that no charges had been filed as of Wednesday.
In an email response, Pacheco wrote regarding the allegations: “If he wants to go to court, we will go to court.” She also addressed broader community conditions, stating that local organizations like the Kerman Food Bank were experiencing food shortages as families faced fear and uncertainty from recent immigration enforcement actions. Pacheco wrote that parents were afraid to go to work or leave home to buy groceries, adding that local families were struggling to put food on the table.
The controversy unfolds amid heightened tension in the Central Valley, where a surge in federal immigration operations and detentions has rattled agricultural communities, leading some workers to stay away from farm fields and construction sites while families keep children home from school. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for information regarding the October 8 operation outside La Princesa Real Bakery in Kerman, where Pacheco filmed her initial interaction with agents and posted the footage online with the title, “Mayor Maria Pacheco Stands Up to ICE.”
In the days following the alleged encounter with Bridges, Pacheco continued to post about immigration enforcement on social media. On October 15, she wrote on Facebook about spotting an unmarked white SUV with no plates on Shaw and Dickenson near agricultural fields, describing the driver as masked and hooded. Two days later, she posted about communities living on constant high alert due to fear of masked men in unmarked vehicles.
