Two years before he became Osceola County sheriff, Marcos Lopez joined the gambling business, a venture that started when he introduced a veteran of illegal casinos to a Chinese-born realtor with money to invest, according to a newly released affidavit.
That deal netted him thousands of dollars, but in September 2019, he had to reassure the woman from China there was no danger of being caught, the record shows.
“Kate, nothing to worry. No matter what the outcome is, when I win we start the first internet amusement cafe in Osceola County,” Lopez wrote in a text message. “You will be safe and not have to worry about anything because I will be your sheriff.”
Lopez, who prosecutors say arranged the meeting to discuss investing in illegal gambling houses in Marion and Sumter counties, would go on to win the sheriff’s job in 2020, the first Hispanic in Osceola elected to that position. An illegal casino would open in Osceola in 2022, protected by Lopez, who allegedly convinced his partners to open in his jurisdiction.
The 2019 arrangement kicked off what prosecutors described as a multi-county illegal gambling empire that generated about $21.6 million, according to a 255-page affidavit the Orlando Sentinel obtained Friday evening from the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is leading the criminal case against Lopez and other co-conspirators.
The business collapsed when Lopez and others were arrested June 5. Lopez was then suspended from office, replaced by Sheriff Christopher Blackmon, previously a Central Florida regional chief at Florida Highway Patrol.
The document details Lopez’s role in the gambling enterprise, for which he sought political contributions and personal payments in exchange for using his position as sheriff to protect it from scrutiny. The highly-anticipated affidavit had been sealed, with prosecutors offering few details about the scheme beyond the existence of The Eclipse, the illegal casino in Kissimmee they said was protected by Lopez after he scouted the location.
The casino was shutdown after a multi-agency raid in August 2024. The investigation, which Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said began a year earlier, led to Lopez’s arrest and ensnared five others. Prosecutors say Sheldon Wetherholt created the business entities that owned the casinos; Robin Severance-Lopez, Lopez’s estranged wife, helped out in a “ministerial” role; Sharon Fedrick paid the bills; Carol Cote kept the books; and Ying Zhang, the Orlando-based realtor who former employees say went by “Kate” and has since fled to China to evade prosecution, was an investor who also arranged for the slot machines to be shipped from her home country.
Lopez, his wife and the others have all pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering.
The affidavit describes Krishna Deokaran, who owned The Eclipse and other casinos in Lake County and elsewhere, as the kingpin of the operation — a man who investigators said had about $1 million in $100 bills in a bag in his car when they investigated him last year. However, he has not been charged with a crime, though prosecutors named him as a co-conspirator in court hearings. According to the affidavit, he even partnered with Zhang to import gambling machines from China, which they owned as vendors through several similarly named business entities, including K&K Amusement LLC.
He had to relinquish nearly $1 million in forfeiture cases filed in Osceola and Orange counties following raids at the casinos, according to court records.
In the scheme’s early days in September 2019, the affidavit shows, Lopez sent a text to Zhang that was just three emojis: Two slot machine emojis added together to equal an emoji of a bag of money.
“Let’s go see the new shops this week,” Lopez later texted, followed with, “Or a party. You got to celebrate. Let loose.”
While the gambling operation was running, the affidavit says, Deokaran and Zhang would pay Lopez’s cut on a monthly basis. He would use the money for personal expenses and as off-the-books campaign donations. Both Deokaran and Zhang also made official, $1,000 contributions to his sheriff’s election campaigns in 2020 and 2024.
Zhang told investigators that she paid Lopez between $20,000 to $25,000 on top of donations noted in campaign finance filings, claiming they were gifts to the sheriff as she considered him a friend and that “there was nothing official or put on paper,” the document says.
Lopez’s alleged role as an partner in the enterprise and later a protector of The Eclipse ultimately earned him at least $600,000, prosecutors say. The cash, investigators said, would often be handed to a member of Lopez’s 2020 campaign.
After he was elected sheriff, Lopez urged Deokaran to set up a casino in his jurisdiction in Osceola, the documents show. In November 2021, Deokaran sent Lopez a screenshot of a potential location, to which Lopez replied, “Hey bud that may be in the city of Kissimmee,” the affidavit said.
“Deokaran’s interpretation was that the location was not in his jurisdiction, thus Sheriff Marcos R. Lopez could not protect him there,” according to the affidavit. “Krishna Deokaran said he felt pressured to find potential store locations in Osceola County jurisdiction from Sheriff Marcos R. Lopez.”
Once the Osceola casino opened, Lopez “continued to advance the interests of the criminal enterprise,” the affidavit said. “He collected a portion of the illegal gambling proceeds from The Eclipse Social Club in cash, further solidifying his role as both a protector and beneficiary of the illicit operation.”
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