Alachua man arrested for impersonating an attorney performed mediation services for the City of Gainesville’s Office of Equity and Inclusion

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florzelle Fields, 50, of Alachua, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly misrepresenting himself as qualified to practice law, engaging in a scheme to defraud, identity theft, and intimidating a witness; one of the many victims described in his arrest report is the City of Gainesville, which reportedly hired him to do work for its Office of Equity and Inclusion.

Fields was previously ordered – twice – to stop practicing law

A Gainesville Police Department (GPD) detective reported that between 2022 and 2025, Fields represented himself as an attorney and “disguised it as mediation.” The report alleges 37 counts of unlicensed practice of law, forgery, interfering/tampering with a witness, six counts of criminal use of personal identification information, and seven counts of exploitation of the elderly and engaging in a scheme to defraud of $50,000. According to the report, 19 different victims were defrauded, for a cumulative total of $55,575. The detective states that Fields has been doing this since at least 2008, when he was issued a cease-and-desist order from the Florida Bar; in 2015, Fields was served with a permanent injunction that prohibited him from practicing law.

Fields’ business, Zion & Company, advertises employees who are attorneys, but “victims have expressed that [Fields] handles all of the legal services.”

Fields claimed to have a PhD and a Juris Doctor

Fields also allegedly searched court dockets for open civil and divorce cases and sent letters to the petitioner or respondent, offering to provide mediation services. In his resume, Fields reportedly claimed to have a PhD in Public Policy and a Juris Doctor, and he claimed to be a certified mediator with the Florida Supreme Court; according to the detective, Fields does not possess any of those credentials. 

This investigation began with a client who complained to GPD that he had hired Fields to perform mediation services on a landlord-tenant issue, the services were not performed, and Fields refused to refund his money. In November 2024, the victim said, Fields dropped him as a client because he was “pursuing a new channel of work with the new Sheriff.” The victim said he had reached out to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office multiple times, and they said they didn’t know who Fields was.

Fields performed mediation services for the City of Gainesville’s Office of Equity and Inclusion

The detective found that Fields had performed mediation services on behalf of the City of Gainesville’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. The resume Fields gave to the City reportedly stated that he was a certified mediator, a qualified arbitrator, and a member of the American Bar Association, Caribbean Bar, and National Bar; the detective noted that none of these are true, and the investigation found that Fields does not have a PhD and never graduated from law school.

During a Gainesville City Commission meeting on November 16, 2022 that was covered by Alachua Chronicle, Fields, who said his name was “Dr. Fields” and he was the founder of Zion & Company, a mediation firm in Gainesville, offered to “facilitate the conversation… in a confidential setting,… to come up with some kind of resolution in this situation… Allocating the funds in placing mediators or arbitrators, that is a solution that we can do with the police department… to try to work out the conflict.”

Florida Supreme Court received multiple complaints over the years

The detective spoke with the Florida Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Center, which said multiple complaints had been received over the years about Fields and Zion & Company, and they provided a copy of a letter sent to Zion & Company, instructing them to remove all mention of Florida Supreme Court certifications from their website.

The Alternative Dispute Resolution Director in Alachua County reported that Fields “poached” clients from the court dockets and then filed documents in a number of cases that were rejected by judges because they were incomplete or incorrect.

The Florida Bar Unlicensed Practice of Law Council also reportedly provided information about complaints they had received from Gainesville, Miami, and Hillsborough County. The Council also provided the cease-and-desist letter from 2008 and the injunction from 2015; Fields reportedly signed the injunction, confirming that he was aware that he was prohibited from providing a long list of legal services or advertising his ability to provide those services. In spite of this, Zion & Company’s website remained active and was used to solicit clients.

Search warrant found “dozens” of letters to potential clients

A search warrant of Fields’ residence was executed on February 26, 2025, and the documents collected included “dozens” of letters that were intended for parties in various civil cases in multiple counties, offering Zion & Company’s services. Additional victims were reportedly identified from communications found on Fields’ phone.

Two victims reported that after they hired Fields, believing he was an attorney who could help them with their respective divorce cases, they received an email in the name of an actual attorney, who was identified as the Compliance Counsel for Zion & Company; the detective noted that this attorney was the victim of identity theft, and he said he knew Fields 20 years ago, when Fields worked in the IT department of his law firm, but he had not had anything to do with any of Fields’ businesses and had not sent that email or other emails to victims that were signed with his name.

Fields allegedly withdrew money from disabled woman’s bank account

The detective found that in one case, Fields accepted mediation/legal fees from three sisters, and he obtained a Power of Attorney for one of the sisters (who was mentally disabled) and allegedly made several unauthorized withdrawals totaling $9,000 for his personal use from her bank account.

Intimidating a witness

In February 2025, Fields allegedly spoke with one of his victims and asked her to speak with the prosecutor on his behalf; he reportedly told her that the detective used his brother’s criminal history (the detective noted that this was not true). The victim reportedly told the detective that she felt intimidated by Fields, but she continued to believe that he was an attorney.

Fields has been charged with engaging in a scheme to defraud, misrepresenting himself as an attorney, fraudulently impersonating another person, and intimidating a witness. He was also booked for violating probation following a conviction for violating his pre-trial conditions in a domestic battery case. He has 12 felony convictions (none violent) and 17 misdemeanor convictions (one violent) in Florida, and he has at least one conviction in Georgia for misrepresenting himself as an attorney. He is currently on probation, and he has three pending misdemeanor cases (all related to the domestic battery case) and a pending felony case for grand theft and exploitation of the elderly.

Judge Susan Miller-Jones ordered him held without bail until the probation violation is resolved, and she set bail at $625,000 on the new charges.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.