OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – The sheriff of Osceola County, Marcos Lopez, was arrested Thursday as part of an investigation into illegal gambling and public corruption. Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him from office.
In his time in office, Lopez implemented a number of public safety upgrades and sought to expand the agency’s relationship with the community. He also proved to be a controversial figure at times.
Born in Chicago and raised in Central Florida, Lopez became the first Hispanic sheriff in Florida when Osceola County voters elected him in 2021. He was reelected last November. He has three children.
[WATCH video below from when Lopez was sworn in]
Before that, Lopez joined the sheriff’s office in 2003 after graduating from the police academy at the Technical Education Center of Osceola, according to his biography on the sheriff’s office website.
Lopez also served in the military for 22 years. He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and then in the Navy Reserve.
Over the years, News 6 has covered several of Lopez’s programs and initiatives.
Lopez implemented a Real Time Crime Center in 2021 to better monitor the county for incidents and increase response times.
[WATCH the video below to learn about the Real Time Crime Center]
In 2021, the sheriff’s office worked with Orlando Speed World to give street racers a safe and legal location to race and try to get them off the street.
In 2024, Lopez started the “Keeping Our Seniors Safe” program to better connect with the senior community and make them aware of resources and tools available to prevent crimes against seniors and to keep them safe if something happens to them.
[WATCH video below to learn about the “Keeping Our Seniors Safe” program]
He also started the Women on Watch Initiative in 2023 to get more women in law enforcement, hired full-time Spanish-speaking 911 dispatchers, and started an anti-bullying campaign at Osceola County’s schools.
Lopez also supported a new camera enforcement program to catch drivers speeding through school zones, which was launched this past February.
However, Lopez also was accused of promoting policies that emphasized a macho kind of policing that led to an excessive use of force.
[WATCH video of previous coverage]
Earlier this year, Lopez and the sheriff’s office were sued by a man who suffered burns on over 75% of his body after a deputy discharged a Taser during a traffic stop at a gas station in 2022.
The lawsuit accused Lopez of emphasizing “machismo over reasonable policing.”
In a statement on Thursday, the attorneys who brought the lawsuit issued a statement about Lopez’s arrest:
“The charges against Lopez go to show that he was parading as a serious law enforcement officer and was not interested in improving public safety. Keeping communities safe takes hard work, but Sheriff Lopez’s arrest suggests that he was instead putting on a show for social media and let his deputies run wild while he spent his own time engaged in illicit behavior.”
The Pendas Law firm; law firm of Romanucci & Blandin
A similar claim was made in another lawsuit filed in federal court in 2023 in connection with a 2022 incident in a Target parking lot. In that incident, deputies taking part in tactical training responded to a shoplifting incident at the store, which ended in deputies shooting at the getaway car, killing one man and injuring two others.
[WATCH video of our previous coverage of the Target shooting]
The lawsuit said Lopez fostered a culture at the sheriff’s office of “escalating minor criminal offenses into violent and deadly scenes.”
The suspects were accused of stealing pizza and Pokémon cards. The sheriff’s office accused the suspects of pinning a deputy against a vehicle as they tried to drive off.
Lopez’s delayed response and transparency on the case early on led to questions about how the deputies handled the situation and why the agency’s policy on body-worn cameras was unclear when it came to the tactical team.
The deputies were later cleared of using unreasonable force.
Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell accused Lopez of helping Gov. Ron DeSantis build a case to suspend her in 2023. During a news conference, Lopez accused Worrell and her office of dropping or lowering charges of drug trafficking crimes in the county and not following mandatory minimum policies.
Worrell accused Lopez of passing the blame and misleading with the data. She said the sheriff’s office needed to work with prosecutors to build better cases. Lopez admitted he had not spoken to Worrell before making the accusations.
[WATCH video below to see previous coverage]
Last year, the state attorney’s office put Lopez on a list of law enforcement officers who might be considered “untruthful” after an investigation into the sheriff posting a photo to social media that showed the dead body of a missing girl, Madeline Soto. Lopez paid a $250 fine for violating Florida public records law.