In the early morning of Oct. 9, 2021, then-Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez saw a way to turn a murder scene into a business opportunity.
A young woman had been gunned down outside a hookah lounge, and Lopez showed up at the scene, law enforcement documents say. While his deputies investigated the killing, Lopez approached the restaurant’s landlord to suggest he shut down the business.
Soon after, Lopez texted the head of an illegal gambling empire — one investigators say he’d been secretly working with for the past two years. The man had been scouting, without success, for locations in Osceola where he could open a new casino, and now the sheriff thought the building that housed the Red Star Restaurant & Hookah Bar seemed perfect.
“Call me right away,” Lopez wrote. “We did a raid, and I shut that place down, it’s ours.”
Lopez’s efforts worked and in mid-2022 an illegal casino called The Eclipse opened in his chosen location, according to a 255-page law enforcement affidavit released earlier this month that describes that and many other eyebrow-raising episodes. Soon after, Lopez earned his first payment from the new business, which offered slot machines and other types of games — $15,000 in cash, paid during a meeting at a Bahama Breeze restaurant.
For at least five years, Lopez led a double life, employed in law enforcement but also working for an “extensive gambling enterprise” that operated casinos in Lake, Marion, Sumter and Osceola counties, had aspirations to move into other states and made more than $21 million, according to the affidavit.
And as his efforts to find a location for The Eclipse showed, Lopez was sometimes brazen in how he wove his two occupations together — pressuring gambling partners for campaign support, fending off his own deputies’ concerns about the casino, even conducting gambling enterprise business from his sheriff’s office, an Orlando Sentinel review of the document shows.
The affidavit was filed by officers with federal Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the local Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI), a collective effort of law enforcement agencies. It offers the first public view of the substantial evidence their probe collected, although notably, there is no indication that investigators interviewed Lopez, who was suspended from office the day of his arrest in June.
Lopez, 56, has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering and is now free on a $1 million bond. Lopez’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Lopez had emerged as a Central Florida law enforcement leader in 2021, when he was inaugurated as his county’s first Hispanic sheriff. He had cultivated an image as a “tough on crime” lawman, highlighted by bombastic videos documenting his crime-fighting exploits on the agency’s social media accounts. That reputation — plus a crowded Democratic primary — earned him a second term in last year’s elections. But by then, investigators behind the scenes were collecting evidence that would lead to his downfall.
Throughout a three-year investigation, agents obtained information from undercover operations, a confidential informant, business records, text messages and interviews with key players, including Krishna Deokaran, described as the man “who stood at the helm” of the gambling enterprise.
Deokaran, who came to Homeland Security’s attention as he tried to launder more than a million dollars in illegal gambling profits, ultimately provided extensive information about his operation and Lopez’s involvement, the affidavit shows.
Described by prosecutors as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” Deokaran has not been charged but the affidavit accuses him of serious crimes. His attorney also did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Deokaran told investigators he paid Lopez between $600,000 to $700,000 in illegal earnings over the course of their partnership and watched the sheriff upgrade both his car and his house.
In turn, Lopez promised he’d shield The Eclipse.
“We are protected by the sheriff,” Deokaran told his casino employees, according to an interview another co-conspirator, Sharon Fedrick, had with investigators.
Lopez was a deputy campaigning for Osceola’s top cop job when he first joined Deokaran’s gambling business in 2019, according to the affidavit.
Lopez met Deokaran through Daniel Pagan, a friend who worked security at another illegal casino owned by Deokaran. Lopez toured that Leesburg business and played some of the games before sitting down with Deokaran and telling him he wanted to partner on “something like this” in Osceola.
Deokaran told police he gave Pagan $5,000 for Lopez’s campaign, though $4,000 of that wasn’t reported on campaign finance records. Under state law, $1,000 is the maximum an individual can contribute to a political campaign.
After Lopez was elected in 2020, he hired Pagan as a deputy at the sheriff’s office, where he continues to work. Capt. Kim Montes, the agency’s spokesperson, defended Pagan’s ongoing employment, noting his role in introducing Lopez to Deokaran took place “prior to him being employed by this agency.”
Soon after his initial meeting with Deokaran, Lopez connected the casino owner with Ying Zhang, an Orlando real estate agent he knew. Zhang proposed investing in the casino business and helping the group obtain gaming machines from her native China. The affidavit names Zhang as a co-conspirator, but she has not been arrested. A former employee said Zhang fled to China as investigators closed in.
Lopez was paid at least $5,000 for introducing Deokaran and Zhang and then later received regular payouts from a new casino they opened in Lady Lake, located in Sumter County, called Player’s Palace. The money was paid in cash, often delivered to him stuffed in paper bags or manila envelopes.
Lopez also pushed his new business partners to back his run for sheriff.
“We need campaign support,” he texted Zhang in October 2019.
Lopez’s 2020 campaign manager worked for Zhang at her real estate office. He told investigators he remembered seeing Zhang board a Lopez campaign bus and hand an envelope – one he believed contained cash – to the campaign treasurer.
Zhang told the former campaign manager that she contributed about $20,000 to Lopez’s run for office. But when he looked over Lopez’s campaign documents, he said he did not find a record to match such contributions.
Zhang later told investigators about the donations. “Is this called bribe?” she asked. “I’m not bribing him at all, I’m just trying to help him get elected.”
Zhang was invited to Lopez’s election night victory party and texted him, “Congratulations boss,” once the results were released.
Once in office, Lopez was in frequent contact with Deokaran, the affidavit indicates.
In April 2021, roughly three months after taking office, Lopez texted Deokaran about a possible meeting.
“Friday at 2 pm my office!” he wrote. In the next message, he sent the address for the agency headquarters. Deokaran confirmed he would attend. It’s not clear what they discussed.
Lopez was eager for Deokaran to open a casino in Osceola. But finding a space proved tricky.
One place Deokaran suggested was rejected by Lopez because it was in the City of Kissimmee, meaning the Kissimmee Police Department, and not his agency, handled law enforcement there, text messages between the men show.
Another was near the sheriff’s office headquarters. “No that can’t work because it’s too close for comfort,” Lopez texted.
Finally, the restaurant and hookah bar seemed an option after the shooting in that establishment’s parking lot, but securing it was not easy, and Lopez seemed to become frustrated.
“Hey bud I cannot believe you can’t get a place,” Lopez texted Deokaran in mid-November.
In December, 2021, two months after the killing, Lopez held a press conference outside the restaurant, with the grieving mother of the shooting victim standing next to him. There he announced the arrests of seven suspects and railed against people “who think they’re gangsters.”
By then, with Lopez’s help, Deokaran had finally reached a deal to rent the property.
Two weeks after the press conference, on Christmas Day, Lopez texted Deokaran several times.
“How is the space coming along,” he wrote.
“Almost finished,” Deokaran replied.
Lopez attended a soft opening for the new casino on May 26, 2022, an event Deokaran described as “awesome” in a text to the sheriff the next day.
The business was profitable — Deokaran said he once handed Lopez an envelope with $10,000 after a meal at a Kissimmee steakhouse — and tried to stay off the radar, but it did not stay secret for long.
On Sept. 20, 2022, just four months after it opened, several deputies discovered the illegal casino after entering The Eclipse for a business check. When one deputy ordered the establishment to shut down, a security guard called Deokaran, who told the deputy, “You don’t know who I am, but I know Sheriff Lopez.”
Deokaran told investigators he called Lopez, who then ordered the deputy to stand down. Ten days later, it happened again.
Deokaran texted Lopez and sent along a photo of the deputy. Lopez responded, “Let me know if they say something. You should have no issues.”
Two minutes later, Deokaran wrote back: “They left.”
That same month, someone called in an anonymous Crimeline tip, reporting that an illegal casino with “Las Vegas-style machines” was operating at 4561 W. Irlo Bronson Highway, the site of the former restaurant and hookah bar.
Soon the MBI was sending undercover officers to the casino.
In the meantime, Lopez named Deokaran a “special deputy,” a status the casino owner would share with an individual who, unbeknownst to him, was an informant who had infiltrated the gambling business. When investigators caught up with Deokaran, he had a “special deputy” sticker on his car and a “special deputy” sheriff’s badge and ID. All of that would eventually be seized, along with Deokaran’s “special deputy” sheriff’s department polo shirt.
In August 2023, Lopez told Deokaran he got an email from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office telling him about an investigation into illegal casinos in Osceola. The email, the affidavit said, did not specify which casinos were being targeted, but Lopez “reassured him and told him not to worry about any possible investigation.”
While MBI’s investigation was underway, a confidential source in December 2023 informed Homeland Security that Deokaran was looking to launder the proceeds from his illegal Central Florida casinos, sparking another avenue for investigators to pursue, according to the affidavit.
The casino business leaders, though, seemed unaware of the full scope of this multi-pronged investigation. It is not clear how much Lopez knew.
At a 2024 event for Lopez’s reelection campaign at a local rodeo, Deokaran said he showed up with $15,000 for Lopez. He made his last payment to the sheriff in July, 2024, according to the affidavit.
A month later, on Aug. 27, agents with the MBI and HSI raided the Eclipse and shut it down.
The next day, Deokaran received notice from the sheriff’s office that his special deputy status had been revoked.
The MBI had given the Osceola sheriff’s office a heads up about its investigation a few months before, according to the affidavit, and on the morning of the raid Lopez learned that agents had a search warrant and were soon to arrive at the Eclipse.
He called MBI Director Michael Stucker, questioning the legality of raiding the casino. The affidavit says Stucker told Lopez the case had been well vetted and that the Office of Statewide Prosecutions and Homeland Security, running its parallel investigation, were on board.
Investigators would later learn that 23 minutes before Lopez called Stucker, he called Deokaran, though what the men spoke about is not detailed in the affidavit.
As a result of the raid, Deokaran lost $138,856 in cash recovered at The Eclipse and later had to relinquish nearly $988,000 from four bank accounts. By Oct. 3, more than a month after the raid, he agreed to speak with investigators.
He did not speak with Lopez again after the raid, he told them.
He became resentful of Lopez, according to Fedrick, who handled bills for Deokaran’s business, often collecting money from the casinos and delivering it to Deokaran’s home.
She has also been charged in the racketeering scheme and pleaded not guilty.
Fedrick believed her boss’s indignation stemmed from the sheriff’s failure to warn him of law enforcement’s plans, “especially after Lopez led him to believe they were protected,” the affidavit says.
After the raid, Fedrick was in the Orange County Jail facing charges in an unrelated organized fraud case. While there, the affidavit says, she spoke with her sister, who’d gotten a call from Deokaran and relayed his message: “Since the police took everything from him…the Sheriff was going down too.”
