An October 13 order from the Florida Supreme Court suspended North Miami Beach attorney Ginna Arevalo from practicing law, effective immediately and until further order, according to the Florida Bar disciplinary notice. The notice says the suspension followed Arevalo’s conviction of aggravated stalking after an injunction. Adjudication was withheld, and she was placed on five years of supervised probation.
The Miami Herald reports that Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan will serve as referee in the professional discipline matter. Arevalo has appealed her criminal conviction, and her probation is scheduled to run through January 13, 2031, the Herald reported. She has been a member of the Florida Bar since 2017 and had no prior disciplinary record.
Florida suspension figures
The Florida Bar’s historical discipline table records 194 total suspensions in 2015-16, including 19 orders classified as “Felony Suspension” and 10 as “Felony Suspension (Final Sanction Pending).” The table does not identify the offenses involved, so it cannot show how many suspensions concerned aggravated stalking, according to The Florida Bar.
How Florida handles felony suspensions
According to The Florida Bar, a felony suspension generally remains in effect during an appeal unless the court amends or terminates it. After a referee is appointed, the referee has 90 days to hold a hearing and issue a report recommending the final sanction.
That process distinguishes an immediate suspension from the later disciplinary outcome: an appeal does not by itself end a felony suspension, while the referee’s report addresses the recommended final sanction.
The injunction and the arrest report
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, as described by the Miami Herald, says Arevalo sent 435 text messages to the other party after a stalking injunction took effect. That figure comes from the report; it is not presented here as a separate finding by the jury. The report also describes messages threatening harm to the recipient and others.
The sheriff’s affidavit, as reported by the Herald, says the recipient petitioned for an injunction on March 23, 2022, alleging they had received about 15,481 texts over two weeks from numbers Arevalo used. The injunction became permanent on April 20, 2022. The affidavit said the order was filed by joint stipulation, which investigators cited as evidence that Arevalo knew it was in force.
Arevalo’s account
In a statement on her website, as recounted by the Miami Herald, Arevalo said emotional distress after a hysterectomy affected her understanding of the injunction. She said she signed a one-page no-contact document without realizing its full implications, later learned she had not received all the pages, and contacted the petitioner in an effort to correct the mistake. These are Arevalo’s claims as reported by the Herald, not findings of the court.
