Osceola County Sheriff Marcos López accused Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell’s office of not prosecuting drug trafficking cases aggressively enough, in what is the latest row this week between the region’s head prosecutor and local law enforcement leaders.
López, who spoke to reporters Thursday while flanked by three members of his top brass, claimed there have been 73 people arrested on drug trafficking charges on a wide range of substances from marijuana to fentanyl. Zero, he said, faced a sentence of a mandatory minimum of three years in prison.
According to the Medical Examiner’s Office, 141 people in Osceola County died of drug overdoses in 2022, a figure cited by López.
“We need to get this crap off the streets. It’s dangerous and it’s killing people,” López said. “The key to protecting people is holding the traffickers responsible. We go after the higher-level drug dealers so we can stop the people who are pushing this junk into our community.”
López also pointed to seven cases in which he claimed trafficking suspects either pleaded no contest to other drug charges or were not prosecuted at all. In at least three of López’s examples, prosecutors said the cases were “not suitable for prosecution,” according to court records reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.
In another case, a suspect had pleaded no contest to meth possession and two misdemeanor charges, while another pleaded no contest to fentanyl possession with intent to sell and possession of heroin and cocaine. That suspect, Miguel Martínez-Lorenzo, was sentenced in August and is slated to be released in June, despite facing 25 years behind bars.
Court records show one suspect’s case is still pending prosecution for heroin possession and battering a law enforcement officer, despite initially being charged with trafficking fentanyl and cocaine, among other drug crimes.
López described many of the traffickers as Hispanic, claiming “it’s our own people who are poisoning and killing us.”
“I’ve got family members who have children dying because of this poison,” López said. “When you drop the charges, you spank them on the hand — that’s the wrong message we’re sending these people who are killing our communities.”
After this story was published, State Attorney’s Office spokesperson Keisha Mulfort said López’s remarks were “filled with inaccuracies and misinformation and serves no other reason than to perpetuate a false, collaborative narrative being presented by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott and others that my office doesn’t prosecute cases.”
López said he has not presented his concerns to Worrell, but Worrell told reporters March 9 that López last year provided six cases in which prosecutors didn’t seek mandatory minimums. Worrell said she responded with “20 cases where we did.”
“Facts matter,” Worrell said. “It is our job to review all of the information in a case to determine what is the most appropriate charge that should be filed and whether we can meet our constitutional burden of proving these cases without a reasonable doubt. And if we cannot, then we are obligated by law to not go forward on cases.”
The sheriff said he doesn’t recall that conversation. In response to his comments, the State Attorney’s Office said it is compiling data on drug trafficking prosecutions in 2022.
“There are many nuances involved in the prosecution of criminal cases, and while it’s not easy to create splashy headlines while describing the detail that goes into the work that we do, adhering to the rule of law is our number one priority,” Mulfort said.
Worrell has been battling what she said is an attempt by Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove her from office following a shooting spree in Pine Hills that killed three people, including a child. She accused López and Orange County Sheriff John Mina of feeding information to the governor to build a case against her.
Mina has repeatedly denied the allegation, though Worrell points to a tense meeting last July which she believes was Mina “was trying to provide the governor with evidence that the governor could use to justify my suspension” for negligence in prosecuting repeat offenders. On Thursday, López denied being in contact with the governor’s office.
“I have not been in contact with the governor, let’s not try to make this political,” López said. “… My community is being poisoned by this garbage. We’re seeing a pattern from the state, and it needs to be resolved one way or the other.”
When asked whether he’d support an effort to remove Worrell, who is seeking a second term as state attorney in 2024, López replied, “That has nothing to do with me.”
![National Weather Service experts warned Wednesday that the rise of a potent, global climate bully has set the stage for violent weather and killer tornadoes in Central Florida from now until spring. With one occurring every few to seven years at varying strengths, an El Niño climate phase is taking shape as among the stronger on record and is forecast to have a high probability of ushering powerful storm systems across the Gulf of Mexico into the Orlando region and other parts of Florida through March. National Weather Service officials said conditions in place put Central Florida at a comparable […]](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FLORIDA-TORNADOES.jpg?w=534 "National Weather Service experts warned Wednesday that the rise of a potent, global climate bully has set the stage for violent weather and killer tornadoes in Central Florida from now until spring. With one occurring every few to seven years at varying strengths, an El Niño climate phase is taking shape as among the stronger on record and is forecast to have a high probability of ushering powerful storm systems across the Gulf of Mexico into the Orlando region and other parts of Florida through March. National Weather Service officials said conditions in place put Central Florida at a comparable […]")
