State officials arrested the mayor of Kissimmee, Florida, on charges of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud, related to alleged misuse of post-pandemic grant funds.
At a press conference Wednesday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier explained that Mayor Eva Espinosa was arrested over a post-pandemic small business assistance program in the city near Walt Disney World.
Ms. Espinosa was arrested just after 8 a.m. as she drove away from her home and was taken to the Osceola County jail, according to Orlando’s WFTV.
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She will remain there until her first court appearance Thursday, jail officials told the Orlando Sentinel.
Mr. Uthmeier, a Republican, accused Ms. Espinosa, a Democrat, of applying three times in September 2025 to the Kissimmee Business Boost 2.0 program to try and secure financial assistance for herself and her family members. Ms. Espinosa previously voted for and approved the program.
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia said at the press conference that $90,000 of the grant program’s money went to seven businesses in properties that Ms. Espinosa’s family owned or managed.
Of that money, $50,000 went to Ms. Espinosa’s businesses and $40,000 went to her tenants, Mr. Ingoglia said, calling it the local equivalent of members of the U.S. Congress engaging in insider trading of stocks.
If convicted of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud, Ms. Espinosa could serve up to 30 years in prison, Mr. Ingoglia said.
Mr. Uthmeier said Ms. Espinosa “demonstrated an intent to create, streamline and simplify, reduce oversight of and more easily enable a process whereby herself and immediate family could apply for and receive city funds to which she was not entitled.”
Ms. Espinosa maintains her innocence.
“The prosecution must establish that the mayor acted with criminal intent. We firmly maintain that she did not. There is a fundamental difference between an alleged ethics violation and a criminal offense. The State cannot transform one into the other without proving every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” the mayor’s attorney, Migdalia Perez, said in a statement to ABC News.
The Florida Commission of Ethics said last month that there was “probable cause” to believe that Ms. Espinosa “had an employment or contractual relationship with an entity doing business with her agency when her business accepted grant money that was administered by her agency.”
A previous attempt to impeach Ms. Espinosa over the allegations failed, with the votes tied 2-2. Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has the power to suspend elected officials who are arrested, though an executive order implementing the suspension has not been issued, according to the Sentinel.
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