From Orlando Sentinel:
Former Sheriff Marcos Lopez faces racketeering charges alone after others take pleas
Orlando Sentinel, December 14, 2025
Six months after seven people were arrested and accused of running a Central Florida gambling enterprise, only one is left to face trial on racketeering charges: former Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez.
Lopez is accused of helping establish an empire of casinos in Sumter, Marion, Lake and Osceola counties and later using his position as sheriff to protect the one near Kissimmeefrom scrutiny, even from his own deputies. Prosecutors say he earned up to $700,000 from the illegal enterprise.
Five of the seven people who faced charges have now taken plea deals, including Lopez’s estranged wife. One, prosecutors believe, has fled to her native China.
Lopez, arrested June 5 while wearing his sheriff’s uniform, has pleaded not guilty. Experts say he faces an uphill battle if he takes his case to trial, with the plea deals putting him in further peril.
The others who were charged have agreed to testify against him, and court records show prosecutors have plenty of other evidence, including financial documents, text messages and sheriff’s office records.
Though Lopez was not the leader of the gambling ring, his role as sheriff and his alleged mixing of his law enforcement and gambling work made him a target.
“We’re dealing with an elected official, we’re dealing with law enforcement, we’re dealing with someone who was in a position of trust and who breached that trust,” said Rajan Joshi, a local defense attorney unaffiliated with the former sheriff’s case. “So they’re going to try and make an example out of him, and they’re obviously doing that in every which way possible.”
The prosecutors’ evidence revealed so far in court hearings and arrest affidavits, plus the co-conspirators testimony, will not be easy for Lopez to overcome, said Samuel Kan, a law professor at Barry University.
Putting up a defense against that is like battling Smaug, the dragon featured in “The Hobbit,” whose impenetrable hide was vulnerable only in a small patch on his chest, he said.
“That’s like the prosecution’s case,” said Kan, who has worked in the past as a prosecutor, a defense attorney and a police officer. The defense’s job, he added, is to attack where the case is most vulnerable.
“You don’t look at the entire case. You look at where the prosecution is weakest, and that is where you strike.”
Part of that strategy would be to go after the credibility and motivations of the co-defendants. “The best type of witness is someone who has no stake at all in the matter, they’re totally 100% neutral,” Kan said. “That’s not the case here.”
Carol Cote, Sharon Fedrick and Sheldon Wetherholt, indicted along with Lopez, each agreed to plea deals that would have them serve up to a year in jail, a far cry from the 30 years they initially faced. They were accused of keeping the books, paying the bills and lending their name to casino business documents, respectively.
Krishna Deokaran, who prosecutors say “stood at the helm” of the gambling enterprise, provided extensive evidence about the operation, Lopez’s role and how he paid the sheriff in cash stuffed in paper bags or envelopes, court documents show.
Deokaran also reached a plea deal with prosecutors for a money laundering charge, though his does not mention a potential sentence. None of them will be sentenced by a judge until the case concludes.
Robin Severance-Lopez, Lopez’s estranged wife, also recently inked a deal that keeps her out of custody completely and instead sees her serving two years of probation while escaping a formal conviction. She pleaded guilty to money laundering. Like the others, she is required to testify against her husband as part of her agreement.
That leaves just Lopez and Ying Zhang, an Orange County real estate agent who is believed to have fled the country before she could be apprehended.
Lopez is charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. He was suspended from office the day of his arrest. He is now free on bond, and his lawyers did not respond to a request seeking comment for this story.
But Lopez’s attorneys will work to pick apart the allegations against him, the goal being “to tear up the enterprise,” Joshi said.
“Show there’s no structure, show that there is no organization, that this is nonsense,” Joshi said.
From there, an attorney can try to raise doubts about Lopez’s role in the particular offenses that make up the racketeering charge — money laundering, establishing an illegal lottery and maintaining illegal gambling houses, among others. If Lopez’s co-defendants take the witness stand, their plea could be used against them, Joshi added.
“What I argue to a jury in such a situation is, ‘This co-conspirator was purchased with the greatest currency known to man, his freedom,” he said.
But all the information the prosecutors present can overwhelm a jury and complicate the defense.
“The thing is, you can keep attacking, but the jury is just hearing a mountain of evidence coming from every direction,” he added. “So as a defense attorney, you got to get your sword and just be swinging it and making sure you hit accurately on everything the prosecutor does.”
Racketeering trials can take days or weeks to complete, and that comes after months of acquiring evidence and turning it over to the defense so they can mount their counterarguments. Lopez’s case, however, is more compact than many, which often involve prosecutors going after large criminal gangs.
Lopez’s next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 8, and a trial date has not been set. In the meantime, much has still not been publicly released about this case, including the full scope of what his co-defendants told investigators and details about how Lopez allegedly was able to keep his deputies from looking too closely at the casino, called The Eclipse, that operated in Kissimmee.
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