Florida attorney gives up license after harassment conviction

A savage attack on a Naples attorney’s girlfriend by his ex-girlfriend led to the lawyer asking to be essentially disbarred for five years.

And the probable cause affidavit more than hints at Jon Parrish clearing the way for his ex-girlfriend’s attack on his current girlfriend.

Parrish, 56, made the most recent Florida Bar discipline report when he petitioned the state Supreme Court for disciplinary revocation, disbarment in effect, with permission to ask for readmission after five years. In exchange, the Bar discipline matter at hand goes away.

What doesn’t go away is Parrish’s conviction for harassing a victim in a misdemeanor proceeding. Parrish did a year on probation. That ended April 9, the same day the year of probation ended for Parrish’s ex-girlfriend, 39-year-old Natalie Peysina, convicted of battery and cyberstalking.

Peysina’s victim on both charges was Eleanora Paulsen, Parrish’s live-in girlfriend. For over a year, from 2015 through Nov. 20, 2016, Peysina blew up Paulsen’s phone with text messages that called her “c—,” “prostitute,” “cockroach” and “BDSM mistress.” Peysina, who maintained a business partnership with Parrish, threatened Paulsen with arrest and professional ruin.

On Nov. 20, 2016, Peysina went for physical ruin. As described in the PC affidavit, while Paulsen and Parrish lay in bed, Peysina walked into the house, into the bedroom and jumped Paulsen.

“During the initial struggle, the victim, who was naked from the waist down, was struck by Peysina in her vagina as she made lewd comments to the victim about it,” the affidavit read.

The five-foot-one, 105-pound Peysina kept up her ferocious fusillade of punches and knees to the head, torso and face while wrestling Paulsen into a face down position, according to the affadvait. The Ukranian-born Paulsen said the Russian-born Peysina choked her out more than once while threatening her in Russian with death.

“During this prolonged battery on the victim, who was screaming for help, suspect Jon Parrish stood by and watched and did nothing to help the victim,” the affidavit said.

Paulsen remembered seeing Parrish standing in the doorway. Parrish’s 17-year-old daughter, also in the house, did nothing to stop the brutal attack. Afterwards, Paulsen told police, she asked Parrish why he didn’t intervene.

“Parrish told the victim that it wasn’t that bad, she just had a few bruises,” the affidavit said. “The victim told Parish she wanted to report the attack to the sheriff’s office. Parrish told her she did not want to do that because, if she did, ‘It will get worse for you.’”

Paulsen found that “a direct threat … that he would allow or cause the beating to happen again.”

Battered and terrorized, Paulsen trembled as she tried to sleep. The PC affidavit says this turned Parrish on, but his advance was met with rejection.

Parrish refused to take Paulsen to the hospital that night or the next day, though she complained of head pain. He kept Paulsen nearby on Nov. 21 until turning his attention to his daughter when she returned from school. Paulsen said she needed to get coffee at Starbucks.

She went to Collier County Sheriff’s Office and filed a police report. Detectives arrested Peysina Nov. 23, 2016 in her home. Parrish was with her watching TV and, the affidavit said, “attempted to Pull Peysina back into the house prior to [Detective Bruce] Cordivari physically taking her into custody.”

Paulsen told detectives later that Parrish told her Peysina came to the house on Nov. 20 because they have an agreement. If Parrish says he and Paulsen are arguing and Peysina doesn’t get a text message back that he’s OK, “she is to come to his location to protect and defend him.”

Parrish’s arrest entry says he’s six-foot-two and 270-pounds.