In one of his last acts before leaving office, Orange-Osceola State’s Attorney Andrew Bain placed Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez on an official list of law enforcement officers deemed unreliable.
It was the culmination of months of back-and-forth over comments made by the sheriff in which he appeared to downplay the posting of a photo of 13-year-old Madeline Soto’s body online. Bain’s move is a highly unusual reprimand from a sitting sheriff and could make it difficult for Lopez to testify in a criminal case as attorneys could question his credibility.
Bain’s December 30 letter revealing the decision to place Lopez on the so-called Brady List strongly criticized the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office for failing to properly investigate the comments the sheriff made to the media — starting with a March 27 interview with WDBO in which he flatly denied that the photo was of Madeline, who was found dead in St. Cloud after a days-long search.
Instead, the agency opted for a lower-level “investigation” under its truth-telling policy, which Bain suspects was done to ensure the sheriff could avoid being questioned under oath.
Bain said his office had waited months for a more formal investigation into Lopez’s comments, either by the sheriff’s office or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, but finally received a memo on September 25 “exonerating” Lopez of claims that he had lied about the photo. That memo, according to Bain’s letter, described the comments Lopez made to the news media as “consistent with each other and truthful in nature” — conclusions that Bain said “do not hold up to objective scrutiny.”
“While I understand your agency’s interpretation of your ‘truthfulness’ policy to exclude statements made in response to anyone other than the sheriff or his designee, one would think that if the sheriff himself is the source of the truthfulness concern , an ‘investigation’ is necessary. It is more justified in that situation than in any other,” Bain wrote. “… Regardless of the reasoning, however, the result is the same: a memo speculating about your intentions rather than an investigative report in which you can clarify your intentions yourself and under oath.”
In response to questions from the Orlando Sentinel, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office said the agency “completely disagrees with Andrew Bain’s decision,” adding, “The perspectives mentioned in his letter have no merit whatsoever, and the sheriff will appeal his decision.”
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If that appeal fails, it could spell trouble for Lopez. He has been named as a potential witness in the case against Stephan Sterns, the boyfriend of Madeline’s mother who faces the death penalty for her murder, along with dozens of other charges after investigators said he sexually abused the teen for years. Sterns’ attorneys could be expected to make Lopez’s credibility an issue at trial — a tactic that is common when police officers end up on the Brady list and makes it difficult for them to do their jobs.
The photo at issue in the dispute was sent to Lopez’s personal cell phone by one of his command staff after Madeline’s body was discovered, showing her covered in brushes and wearing clothes similar to which was described when she was reported missing. It was later uploaded by the sheriff on March 2 among a collection of photos from an event he attended for seniors.
But when Lopez was asked about the incident during the WDBO interview, he denied that the photo was of Madeline, while accusing critics of “trying to use this as an advantage politically.”
That contradicts what he later told investigators looking into how the image was published — according to an FDLE report, Lopez said it was accidentally uploaded to social media and apologized.
A lawsuit filed on Dec. 11 shows Lopez has pleaded no contest to violating the public records law for posting the photo to his Instagram page while agreeing to pay a $250 fine.
The sequence of events clearly angered Bain.
“When you look at it in this context, it is difficult to read your immediate response, because it is anything other than an attempt to claim that the photo you posted was not the victim, in an attempt to avoid your public responsibility for a violation of Florida public records laws,” the spokesperson said. December 30 letter said. “This is especially true when your public statement then revolves around blaming political rivals for discussing the photo you posted.”
Bain announced in July that his office was considering Lopez for his Brady list, a decision the sheriff rejected at the time when he spoke to reporters. Bain also referenced these statements in his letter, noting that Lopez then confirmed that he knew the photo was of Madeline, “highlighting the lack of veracity you displayed in the WDBO interview when you attempted to claim that this was not the case.”
Whether Lopez is removed from the Brady list depends on new State’s Attorney Monique Worrell, who has not yet been briefed on the matter after he was sworn in Tuesday morning, according to an office spokesperson.
Worrell and the sheriff have a contentious relationship marked by Lopez’s claims that she refused to aggressively prosecute his agency’s drug trafficking investigations — which an Orlando Sentinel investigation found were often botched by his own deputies .
