Embattled Florida sheriff's wife, alleged racketeering co-conspirator, handed $400,000 bond

Cristóbal Reyes, Orlando Sentinel on Jun 24, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

ORLANDO, Fla. — A $400,000 bond was issued Tuesday to the estranged wife of suspended Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez as both are ensnared in an alleged illegal gambling operation — despite veering toward divorce since 2019.

Robin Severance-Lopez must pay $40,000, or 10% of the bond, in order to be released from the Lake County Jail. Just like her husband, she also has to prove the money is legal.

Additionally, she would not be allowed to speak to Lopez and must surrender her passport and firearms.

Michelle Yard, Severance-Lopez’s attorney, said during her first hearing before a judge that her client “does not have significant financial resources” and has a 15-year-old child at home, the couple’s youngest of three.

“Ms. Severance-Lopez is not a co-conspirator,” Yard said. “She is a co-parent.”

Jail records show she was booked on a charge of conspiracy to use racketeering funds, a second-degree felony, but in court was told she’s accused of first-degree conspiracy commit racketeering.

Statewide Prosecutor Colleen Monroe mentioned witness statements, bank records, and text and email messages are some of the evidence included in the affidavit, which has not been publicly released. As with Lopez and the other co-defendants — Carol Cote, Sharon Fedrick, Sheldon Wetherholt and Ying Zhang — the 255-page affidavit laying out the accusations against them has remained under seal, as Zhang has not yet been taken into custody.

“She served primarily through her partnership with Marcos Lopez … where she helped to facilitate the movement of illicit money and receipt of illicit payments from other co-conspirators to Lopez, which is believed to be at least $600,000 to $700,000,” Monroe said.

However, Severance-Lopez’s bond, issued by Judge Carla Peppercorn, is significantly higher than that of her other co-defendants besides her husband, who were given $50,000 bonds for the same charge while Lopez remains behind bars on a $1 million bond.

The reason, Monroe said, is Severance-Lopez and the former sheriff played “more ministerial roles” in the scheme than the other alleged co-conspirators.

The gambling operation, according to records released so far, centers around an illegal casino called The Eclipse run out of a commercial building on West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway in Kissimmee. The Orlando Sentinel revealed Osceola County deputies responded dozens of times to the address between 2022 and Aug. 27 of last year, when the business was raided by authorities.

While the other co-conspirators “operated in employment capacities [and] got paid fees, if you will, small fees for their contributions to this operation,” Monroe said, the Lopezes “were operating as partners and basically capitalizing in large part through Marcos Lopez’s position as the [then-] sheriff of Osceola County in order to generate the kind of income that was coming in through this enterprise to them.”

In the nearly three weeks since Lopez was arrested in Orlando by federal agents, Monroe said his wife deposited $177,000 despite claiming to only have $123,000 to her name, as well as a net monthly income of $1,337. The latter figures come from a financial affidavit filed April 10 as part of the couple’s divorce proceeding in Brevard County that began in 2023, but those records were not made immediately available.

Severance-Lopez is to be arraigned July 21 while the other co-defendants, Lopez included, will face their hearing on Monday.

Yard, her attorney, sought to reduce her bond to $50,000 on Tuesday. She claimed there is “no evidence that she benefited from any alleged activity” involving her husband “or that she received any funds that were illicit from him.” The evidence cited by the prosecution of her involvement, she added, is a single email from 2019 — around the time of their separation — to send a W-9 tax form to Zhang, who also went by “Kate.”

Sending that email, she argued, “doesn’t show a pattern” of criminal activity.

“There is zero agreement for her to join any criminal enterprise here and commit any pattern of racketeering,” Yard said. “Of course, conspiracy requires that the government be able to show that there is a specific intent to engage in two or more predicate acts. … Simply sending a W-9 is not a crime.”

-----------------