Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa Arrested on Grand Theft and Fraud Charges

Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa was arrested on Wednesday morning, October 21, and charged with grand theft and an organized scheme to defraud, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in a post on X.

Espinosa has served as mayor of Kissimmee, a city south of Orlando in Osceola County, since November 2024. Uthmeier gave no other details about the arrest in his announcement. He said his office would hold a news conference at 2 p.m. on Wednesday at its Orlando office to provide more information on the case.

The COVID relief money at the centre of the case

The charges follow months of scrutiny over COVID-19 relief money. Florida Today reported that Espinosa is accused of spearheading $50,000 in relief funds to businesses tied to her family. The money came from American Rescue Plan Act funds that were meant to help businesses that had lost income during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A prosecutor who reviewed the matter found probable cause to pursue impeachment and found that Espinosa had violated three of seven ethics rules examined in the review. The 13-page report said the City Attorney's Office was not consulted on the application materials. It also said Espinosa took public money without disclosing her personal interests and did not return it after she was advised that taking it was improper.

"No warning should have been necessary; the oath of office is warning enough," the report said. "The people of Kissimmee are entitled to a full and public accounting of where their money went, and the return of those monies."

Espinosa has said the city's written guidelines at the time did not prohibit elected officials from applying for the funds. Her family businesses benefited from the program.

An impeachment effort that stalled in August

City commissioners voted 2 to 2 in August 2026 on whether to advance impeachment proceedings and go to trial. The vote fell short of the support required to move the process forward, and Espinosa stayed in office.

In September 2026, the Florida Commission on Ethics formally censured Espinosa and recommended a $2,000 penalty after examining the same allegations about the $50,000 in city COVID-19 relief money.

What happens next

State officials had not released booking details, a bond amount or a court date by Wednesday afternoon. USA TODAY said it had reached out to Espinosa's office for comment, and Florida Today said a telephone message was left for her attorney. Neither report carried a response from the mayor or her lawyer.

The arrest takes a dispute that had played out in ethics hearings and commission votes and moves it into criminal court. Kissimmee residents will learn more about the evidence behind the two charges when the attorney general's office speaks in Orlando on Wednesday afternoon, and when the case reaches its first court hearing.