Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez is accused of making an offensive comment about a nude photo of a civilian employee.
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9 Investigations confirm that former deputy officer Alex Valentin received a nude photo from a young female civilian employee in the spring of 2022.
Former deputy sheriff Samantha Sanchez was in a relationship with Valentin at the time when she says she found the photo of another woman on his phone. She also says she found text conversations between Valentin and Sheriff Marcos Lopez about the photo.
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She took a screenshot of the alleged conversation and later reported it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The allegations are now being discussed in evidence-gathering hearings as Sanchez fights to get her job back.
Sanchez was accused of lying about her whereabouts when she was late for work.
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However, she believes her firing was retaliation after another officer discovered she had screenshots of the inappropriate text message conversation her ex-boyfriend allegedly had with Sheriff Marcos Lopez.
“My first thought was to confront Alex,” Sanchez told WFTV of her reaction after finding text messages on her then-boyfriend's phone.
9 Investigation confirms that Officer Alex Valentin received a nude photo from another civilian employee of the Osceola County Sheriff's Office.
Sanchez said she captured a screenshot of Valentin sharing the photo with his friend and boss, Sheriff Lopez.
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Instead of condemning it, Sanchez told 9 Investigates that Lopez did the opposite — he said, “I would fuck her brains out.” In Sanchez’s screenshot, Valentin appears to respond, “Yeah, she’s pretty,” and the sheriff responds, “Yeah.”
Sanchez said she immediately confronted Valentin about what she found on his phone.
“He told me that the sheriff knew that this woman liked him, and that the sheriff was interested in seeing her naked,” Sanchez said.
Sharing a nude photo of another person without that person's consent is a first-degree felony in Florida. However, the woman in the photo refused to press charges.
“The sheriff saw Alex commit a crime. And no, no punishment, no penalty, no report,” Sanchez said. “He's supposed to be the role model for all the other officers. And he's clearly not,” Sanchez said. “So, you know, how do you get that? How do you have a sheriff who can't be alone in the room with employees?”
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More than a year after she found the text conversation, Sanchez told a female officer what she had found on his phone and about her relationship with Valentin. A few days after that conversation, Valentin confronted her at work with the screenshot.
“He said that because the sheriff had heard that there was a screenshot of their conversation on my phone, and he wanted Alex to go through my phone to find it and delete it, or confirm if it was true,” Sanchez said.
Last February, Sanchez was fired and accused of violating the “truth policy.”
She told Channel 9 that the sheriff's office was looking for a reason to fire her and found something that she said was not a reason to fire her.
“I think I was just too late. Honestly, I signaled a side street about a mile away from my exact location. And I wasn't right at that intersection,” Sanchez said. “I believe I was targeted.”
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The Osceola County Sheriff's Office said in a statement, in part: “Multiple IT specialists have reviewed this photo and have serious concerns about its authenticity. The validity and possible political motivations of these allegations will be thoroughly investigated and any allegations of misconduct will be addressed appropriately.”
9 Investigators spoke to the woman in the nude photo by telephone.
She confirmed that she had sent the photo to the officer, and the FDLE had spoken with her. She again declined to press charges against Valentin; she said this was the first time she had heard of the sheriff's office reacting to the image. She said she was shocked and unhappy about Lopez's alleged reaction and disappointed in the way the sheriff's office handled the situation.
Valentin was arrested in July 2023 after Sanchez said she reported the abuse. He faces six domestic violence charges in Orange County and is scheduled to go to trial later this month. He was fired from the Sheriff's Office the same month he was arrested.
FDLE has not confirmed the status of the investigation at this time.
9 Investigates contacted Valentin by telephone but received no response.
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