Legal Team reaction to racketeering charges against Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez

Attorneys Antonio Romanucci, Stephen H. Weil and Sam A. Harton from national trial firm Romanucci & Blandin, LLC in Chicago and Attorney Albert Yonfa from The Pendas Law Firm in Orlando, together release the following statement on the racketeering charges against Sheriff Marcos Lopez:

"Sheriff Lopez’s arrest on racketeering charges is further evidence of a deeply rooted culture of unlawful behavior from the very top of the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department. 

The charges against Lopez go to show that he was parading as a serious law enforcement officer and was not interested in improving public safety. Keeping communities safe takes hard work, but Sheriff Lopez’s arrest suggests that he was instead putting on a show for social media and let his deputies run wild while he spent his own time engaged in illicit behavior. 

We hope our pending civil lawsuit brings justice not only to our client who was the victim of life threatening injuries by Osceola County Deputies, but to others who have been harmed by a lawless department that all along was overseen by a man allegedly more interested in enriching himself than protecting Osceola County’s residents he was elected to serve."

In January 2025, Romanucci & Blandin, LLC and The Pendas Law Firm together announced the filing of a civil lawsuit against the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Marcos R. Lopez and four deputies for what lawyers say was a despicable and wholly unnecessary use of force for a suspected traffic violation. Jean Barreto was a healthy young man who was riding his motorbike on February 27, 2022, in Osceola County, Florida. But Jean never made it home. Instead, he ended the day in an intensive care unit with life-altering second and third-degree burns after being confronted by law enforcement. Jean stopped to get gas at a Wawa gas station in Orlando, however, Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies, who had been using a Sheriff department helicopter to track him, tackled him. As gasoline poured out of the tank of his overturned motorcycle and pooled around his body, multiple deputies, who had already pinned Jean to the ground, began tasing him. The tasers ignited the gasoline, which exploded into flames and engulfed Jean, burning over 75% of his body. Jean was unarmed. The crime he was suspected of committing was reckless driving.