LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – The defense attorney for suspended Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez is seeking a change of venue, pushing to move his criminal trial from Lake County to Osceola County.
Lopez and his co-defendants — including his estranged wife — have been charged with racketeering, accused of operating an illegal gambling enterprise.
[VIDEO: Emojis link suspended Osceola sheriff Marcos Lopez to gambling operation, prosecutors allege]
During a pre-trial conference via Zoom Tuesday to discuss scheduling details, Mary Ibrahim mentioned in passing that she had filed a motion for the change in venue.
“We will be in front of your honor seven days from now to discuss the change of venue issue,” Ibrahim said, addressing Judge Brian Welke.
Welke will hear the defense’s argument on the change of venue motion next Tuesday, Oct. 14. If granted, trial proceedings would move from Lake County, where they have been held since Lopez and his co-defendants were indicted in June.
“This is way outside the norm,” said Neal McShane, a defense attorney with McShane & McShane Law Firm. “This is not the way it’s normally done.”
[VIDEO: New details emerge in former Sheriff Lopez gambling investigation]
McShane has no connection to the case, but he sat down with News 6 Tuesday to offer insight into Ibrahim’s possible motivation for filing the motion.
“Normally you want to get it as far away as possible where no one knows anything about [the case],” McShane noted. “But I can see where the tactical move here would be to get it out of Lake County, which is a very conservative county.”
McShane said if he were in the same position, he would also seek to get the trial moved out of Lake County.
“I think it’s an excellent move tactically to get it back to Osceola County,” McShane said.
He acknowledged that many change of venue motions are usually filed on the grounds that the defendant’s team believes the client cannot get a fair trial due to pervasive knowledge of the case and the accompanying prejudice. In this case, however, McShane expects the motion to cite a narrow argument.
“From a constitutional point of view, you are entitled to be tried in the county where the crime took place,” McShane said.
In this case, McShane said, both the original motion and a potential response by the prosecution may smack as counter-intuitive.
“It might be the reverse of what you normally see,” McShane explained. “The prosecutor in this case may just argue, ‘Judge, he can’t get a fair trial in Osceola County because he’s the sheriff and because of all the pre-trial publicity.’”
News 6 called the Lake County Clerk of Courts to request a copy of the change of venue motion, but we have not yet received a response.
Elsewhere in Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Welke set a trial date for the week before Thanksgiving.
A pre-trial conference for Lopez and his co-defendants has been set for Nov. 6.
Statewide prosecutor Panagiota Papakos also mentioned that the state plans to call 52 witnesses to testify in the trial.