Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa was granted bond Thursday and is slated to be released from jail ahead of a trial tied to allegations that she inappropriately pocketed small business grants from a city program.
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Espinosa, arrested Wednesday, is charged with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud. She’s accused of illegally receiving $50,000 for businesses linked to her and her family from Business Boost 2.0 program, a financial assistance program for businesses struggling from the COVID-era recession. An additional $40,000 went to businesses that were tenants in buildings owned by Espinosa, investigators say.
The allegations were initally investigated as an ethics violation but evolved into a criminal matter.
On Thursday at a hearing from the Osceola County Jail, Espinosa was granted a $70,000 bond to secure her release. She pleaded not guilty.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which took on the investigation after a state audit found irregularities in how Business Boost 2.0 was administered, found Espinosa took the money despite staff and the city attorney warning her it could be illegal.
Espinosa never denied receiving the funds. But as a prominent businesswoman prior to being elected mayor in 2024, she has long argued that she believed any small business in the city was entitled to apply.
She successfully led an effort to fire the city attorney who warned her she couldn’t receive the money, but cited the attorney’s overall job performance as the reason.
Espinosa later survived an impeachment attempt over the scandal when the four commissioner members deadlocked.
But the Florida Commission on Ethics concluded in August that there was probable cause to believe those grants were illegal. Records show the case was on the commission’s agenda to be finalized with a $2,000 penalty and a “public censure and reprimand” during the commission’s next meeting on Friday. Espinosa had agreed to those terms, the records show.
Following her arrest, a city spokesperson said Vice Mayor Angela Eady will lead the city as the case proceeds and while an internal investigation studies the protocols governing Business Boost 2.0.
Under state law, Eady, who is facing reelection, would be tapped as the new mayor should Espinosa be suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis, who has suspended Central Florida elected officials in the past, has not issued an executive order removing Espinosa from office as of Thursday afternoon.
In a statement, Espinosa’s attorney Midgalia Perez noted prosecutors must prove she had criminal intent in taking the money, which she insists Espinosa did not. The case, Perez added, is about the “fundamental difference between an alleged ethical violation and a criminal offense.”
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On Wednesday, at a press conference led by Attorney General James Uthmeier, Statewide Prosecutor Rich Mantei said he spoke with Perez prior to a press conference about Espinosa’s arrest and mocked her argument as “unusual.”
“I’m here to tell you that yes, in fact you can, and she tried her hardest to be both” unethical and criminal, said Mantei, who is assigned to lead the prosecution. The case will be handled in a Hillsborough County court, Uthmeier’s office said.
Espinosa was arrested outside her home by FDLE agents as a WFTV news crew, tipped off to the move, recorded. Uthmeier, who announced the arrest on social media that morning, said he is looking into how the station learned of the pending arrest.
At a restaurant near downtown Kissimmee on Thursday morning, a coalition of Hispanic leaders called out Espinosa’s arrest as “political theater” and an attack against the broader Hispanic community.
Marcos Vilar, founder and president of Alianza and a friend of Espinosa’s, accused state authorities of conducting a “smear campaign against the mayor.”
“Even if she’s 100% guilty of the things that she’s claimed to be, there’s absolutely no way you can call that grand theft — that’s an exaggeration,” Vilar said.
He also said that the money her tenants received was her effort to help others. “If I had a business in my building, I’d want them to do well. The idea that that’s some kind of scheme to make herself richer is ridiculous,” he said.
Espinosa was slated to attend that press conference, which was originally billed as a get-out-the-vote effort to Hispanics in support of Congressman Darren Soto.
Kissimmee Commissioner Janette Martinez, who spoke to FDLE as part of its investigation, went in her stead.
While she declined to talk about the particulars of the case, Martinez noted that she had voted to impeach Espinosa at the commisison’s Aug. 18 meeting. Still, she “had a hard time sleeping” after seeing how Espinosa’s arrest became a public spectacle, she said.
“Regardless of my vote to move forward with the process, I think about the person: That’s a mother, that’s a wife, that’s a grandmother,” Martinez said. “If my grandkids had to see grandma on TV and everyone speculating without knowing the actual facts of the situation, it’d be devastating.”
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