While no court documents back up published reports that Marcos Lopez and Robin Severance-Lopez, Osceola's former Sheriff and his former wife, have October trial dates set, the two do have court hearings scheduled for next week regarding their racketeering charges stemming from their June arrests by Lake County law enforcement.
On Monday, Judge Brian Welke held a private plea negotiation conference with the legal teams of five co-conspirators named as principals in an illegal gambling operation that spanned Lake and Osceola counties — the Lopezes, Sheldon Whetherholt, Sharon Federick and Carol Cote.
Their court dockets have yet to be updated with anything that came out of that meeting.
The five are also scheduled for a felony sentencing hearing on Monday at 1:30 p.m., again listed as a private meeting with Judge Welke and the attorneys.
Additionally, Robin Severance-Lopez is scheduled for a motion hearing on Wednesday, Aug. 20 at 1 p.m. She is asking to have her GPS monitoring device removed.
Her motion states Severance-Lopez is a longtime Osceola County resident, and resides here with her teenage son, making her a low "flight risk". It also notes maintaining GPS monitoring, "Imposes a significant financial burden on the Accused, who states she cannot afford the ongoing cost (of monitoring) ... The allegation against Ms. Lopez is non-violent in nature. The community is not at any risk of physical harm to persons from Ms. Lopez."
She was arrested at her Harmony home on June 23 by Homeland Security agents and charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering. That was 18 days after Marcos Lopez was arrested by those same agents and charged with racketeering as well, as a result of an investigation by state and federal agents, who claim he helped shield an illegal gambling enterprise, run out of a building on West U.S. Highway 192, from law enforcement and "engaged the (illegal) operation for campaign contributions and personal payments,” according to Florida's Attorney General's office.
Robin Severance-Lopez was released on July 8 on a $400,000 bond. Marcos Lopez satisfied his $1 million bond conditions, which included proof that "ill-gotten funds" weren't used to produce bond, on June 26, three weeks after his arrest. The other co-conspirators were arrested, then released on bonds of $100,000 to $300,000.
Investigators claim Marcos Lopez garnered as much as $700,000 for campaign contributions and other payments from the $21.6 million they say the illegal enterprise may have generated, with text messages and messaging app notes dating back to 2019, before he was elected Sheriff in November 2020.
The media continues to wait for state investigators to release a 255-page case affidavit from the case, that is said to detail some important parts of the investigation, including the names of informants, what they knew and when they knew it. A sixth co-conspirator, connected to the alleged illegal gambling operation, Ying "Kate" Zhang, has not been brought into custody and is rumored to be out of the country; investigators are reportedly waiting for her to be arrested to release the report.
