Kissimmee, Florida, Mayor Jackie Espinosa was arrested Wednesday morning on charges of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced.

Uthmeier said in a post on X that his office would provide more information at a 2 p.m. news conference with the state’s chief financial officer, Blaise Ingoglia, and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Larry Keefe.

Espinosa has served as mayor of Kissimmee, a city south of Orlando, since November 2024. The mayor’s office is officially nonpartisan; Espinosa is a registered Democrat.

Earlier this year, special prosecutor Mayanne Downs found probable cause to file articles of impeachment against Espinosa over ethics complaints involving $50,000 in city grant money awarded to three family-owned businesses.

According to an investigative report, Downs alleged that Espinosa and her family received the money through the city’s Business Boost 2.0 program. The report looked at grants awarded to the three businesses and whether Espinosa’s involvement warranted impeachment proceedings.

Espinosa’s attorney, Migdalia Perez, disputed the report’s findings in a statement to Spectrum News in July. She said city staff had determined eligibility for the grants and denied that Espinosa used her office to obtain preferential treatment. Perez also said the mayor cooperated with the investigation.

According to jail records, Espinosa was booked on one count of grand theft of more than $20,000 and less than $100,000, and one count of organized fraud, involving property valued at more than $50,000.

Perez said Wednesday that the mayor “maintains her innocence. This case involves a publicly approved grant program administered by City staff, not a secret scheme to steal taxpayer money.”

“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,” Perez wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “The State cannot transform one into the other without proving every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We intend to challenge these allegations vigorously in court.”