The shocking Thursday arrest of Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez on racketeering charges follows other controversies during his five-year tenure at the county’s biggest law enforcement agency.

In early 2022, Osceola deputies chased Jean Barreto-Baerga, a motorcyclist they believed was part of a group of bikers accused of pointing guns at motorists, to an Orlando Wawa. An altercation ensued, and a deputy used a stun gun while gasoline pooled beneath him and Barreto-Baerga, igniting both on fire.

The deputy suffered burns on his legs while Barreto-Baerga suffered burns across three-quarters of his body. After the deputy was acquitted in a criminal trial, Barreto-Baerga filed a lawsuit this year against the sheriff’s office and blamed Lopez for a “culture of sanctioning excessive force” at the agency.

In April 2022, a 20-year-old who drove a car carrying two passengers accused of shoplifting $46 in pizza and Pokémon cards, was shot and killed by Osceola deputies in a Target parking lot. Deputies in unmarked vehicles had blocked Jayden Baez, in his parking spot, then fired as he rammed their vehicles trying to flee.

A grand jury cleared the deputies of criminal charges, but said in its report said the killing should not have happened and could have been avoided if the agency had better policies on the use of appropriate force in response to minor crimes. Lopez was asked to testify before the grand jury but declined to do so.

A subsequent lawsuit filed by the victim’s family accused Lopez of fostering “an agency-wide culture of escalating minor criminal offenses into violent and deadly scenes.” At that time, attorney Mark NeJame, who represented Baez’s family, sent a letter to state and federal officials accusing the sheriff’s office of corruption, alleging protectionism and cover-ups.

Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell, following her suspension from office by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in August 2023, confirmed to the Daily Beast that she had begun a public corruption probe into the sheriff’s office’s handling of several cases, which was sparked by discrepancies found in reports filed after Baez’s killing.

“As we were investigating, there was all sorts of illegal activity that started coming up: officers signing each other’s reports, getting them notarized in someone else’s name when they signed them themselves, fraudulent documents,” Worrell told the Beast.

In early 2024, Lopez posted a photo of the dead body of Madeline Soto, the 13-year-old girl whose killing shocked Central Florida, on his Instagram page. Lopez initially publicly denied the photo was of the teenager but later told state investigators he knew it was Madeline.

The State Attorney’s Office filed a summons against Lopez accusing him of violating public records laws in posting the photo, but prosecutors stopped short of accusing Lopez of criminal charges. Lopez pleaded no contest and agreed to pay a $250 fine, according to a court filing.

Andrew Bain, the state attorney at the time, then placed Lopez on an official list of law enforcement officers deemed untrustworthy — also known as a Brady list — in a highly unusual rebuke of a sitting sheriff.

In July 2024, a fired sheriff’s office deputy said Lopez received a nude photo of a female civilian employee at the agency from another fired deputy and made a vulgar comment about wanting to have sex with her, according to what appeared to be a screenshot of a text conversation between the two men.

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