Wife of suspended Sheriff Lopez arrested in connection to illegal gambling enterprise investigation

By Justin Schecker & Hayley Crombleholme

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    LAKE COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — The wife of suspended Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez has joined her husband behind bars in the Lake County jail.

Robin Severance Lopez, 50, is facing the charge of conspiracy to use investment proceeds from racketeering, according to jail records. That is a second-degree felony in the state of Florida.

“It’s not a very common charge,” Orlando-based criminal defense attorney Jose Rivas said. “It’s using funds from a criminal activity to reinvest.”

Rivas says they don’t yet know how these funds were reinvested, but the idea is that she had knowledge that these funds came in from illegal sources.

Video posted on X by Homeland Security Investigations Tampa showed the arrest of Mrs. Lopez Monday. She was booked into the jail on no bond before noon.

The suspended sheriff has been held in the same jail since his arrest June 5, as he has not yet posted his $1 million bond.

WESH talked to Freddie Belton, Owner of Belton Bail Bonds, who has been in the business for fifty years.

He said if you have a million-dollar bond, you’d have to come to a bail agent with 10 percent of that, or $100,000 dollars. But he says a bondsman will also want some type of security or collateral for a bond that high. Like equity in a home.

“Bottom line is to collect $100,000 dollars and turn around and if the person leaves and lose a million dollars, you’re not going to stay in business very long,” Belton said.

WESH asked if it could be hard to find a bondsman who would want to cover a bond that high.

“I’d have a tough time,” Belton said. “I’d worry too much probably. I mean there are people out there who have plenty of security I’m sure,”.

While Robin Lopez didn’t have a bond as of Monday night, she could be given one in her first appearance in court. Expected to be Tuesday morning.

Mrs. Lopez is now the sixth co-defendant in the state’s racketeering case stemming from an investigation that began in 2023 into an illegal gambling enterprise in Central Florida.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said the gambling ring generated more than $21 million in illicit proceeds.

Mrs. Lopez has the same case number as her husband and his four other co-defendants.

Mr. Lopez, Carole Cote, Sharon Fedrick, Sheldon Wetherholt and Ying Zhang are all charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Zhang has not yet been arrested. Therefore, the state’s 255-page affidavit laying out its case against the suspended sheriff is still sealed in the Lake County clerk’s office.

A source told WESH 2 Investigates she is believed to be out of the country.

Cote, Fedrick and Wetherholt have all posted bond and been released from jail. A judge set their bonds at much lower amounts than the suspended sheriff.

Statewide prosecutors have accused Mr. Lopez of expanding the illegal gambling enterprise and shielding the operation from law enforcement.

“The weight of the evidence includes that the defendant obtained between at the very least $600 to $700,000 since 2020 from this illegal enterprise in cash payments,” statewide prosecutor Panagiota Papakos said during Mr. Lopez’s first court appearance.

Records obtained by WESH 2 Investigates show that Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies responded dozens of times to the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee.

Court documents identify the establishment in Kissimmee as an illegal gambling house with slot machines that was operated by Lopez and his co-defendants.

The judge from Mr. Lopez’s first appearance granted the state’s request that he must prove he’s using money from non-criminal sources to post his $1 million bond.

Marcos and Robin Lopez were married in March 2007, according to their marriage certificate in Osceola County.

Mrs. Lopez made her first appearance before a judge Tuesday morning. Her bond was set at $400,000. If released from jail, she will have to surrender her passport and firearms.

Additionally, a GPS monitoring device will need to be installed, and she is prohibited from contacting Marcos Lopez.

As for her husband, the suspended sheriff, he’s approaching three weeks in the Lake County Jail.

“The question is how much is going to be the bond, and the big question is, are they going to require that those funds are proven to the state that they’re legal?” Rivas said.

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