Suspended Osceola Sheriff Lopez seeks bond reduction after 2 codefendants released from jail
Suspended Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez will seek Wednesday to reduce the $1 million bond on racketeering charges that has kept him in jail nearly a week.
A motion filed Tuesday by Lopez's lawyer, Mary Ibrahim, also seeks to modify a condition for his release that his movements be tracked by GPS.
On Friday, Ibrahim unsuccessfully tried having Lopez' bond reduced to $50,000 by arguing he shouldn't be treated differently than a regular individual 'just because he has a sheriff's title.' Two women facing trial alongside him with lower bond amounts have already been released.
Judge Brian Welke will consider Lopez' motion at a noon hearing.
Sharon Fedrick, one of Lopez's alleged co-conspirators, left the Lake County Jail on Monday night after paying a $300,000 bond. Co-defendant Carol Cote paid a $100,000 bond Friday and walked free — the day after all three were arrested.
Fedrick was followed by TV news cameras upon release and insisted she was not involved in the alleged scheme.
'Justice will be served,' she said as she walked away. Attempts by the Orlando Sentinel to contact her for further comment have not been successful.
Two others implicated in the case, Sheldon Wetherholt and Ying Zhang, have not been arrested.
All five face the same state charges — racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering — for what state and federal authorities said was an illegal gambling empire operating out of Osceola and Lake counties.
The allegations, for now centered around an illegal casino in Kissimmee called The Eclipse, emerge from a scheme said to have generated more than $21.6 million. It was run out of a commercial building on West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway that has also been an Indian-American-pizza restaurant and hookah bar.
Lopez, 56, earned up to $700,000 in cash payments since 2020 while using his position as sheriff to skirt accountability, according to a 255-page affidavit described in court by prosecutors that remains under seal. He was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis while his case proceeds and replaced by interim Sheriff Christopher Blackmon, the Florida Highway Patrol's Central Florida regional chief.
Despite facing the same charges as other defendants, Lopez, elected in 2020 as Osceola County's first Hispanic sheriff, was ordered to pay the heftiest bond. It comes with a court-ordered stipulation the payment must be investigated to ensure funds don't come from illegal sources — a condition not required of prosecutors for Cote or Fedrick, according to court records.
Defendants typically can obtain a bond by paying a bonding company 10% of the stated value in the court order.
Lopez and his codefendants are scheduled to be arraigned June 30.
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