What counts as stalking under Florida law?

Willfully, maliciously and repeatedly following, harassing or cyberstalking another person, under s. 784.048, F.S. Harassment means a course of conduct causing substantial emotional distress that serves no legitimate purpose; adding a credible threat makes it aggravated stalking.

Do I need a lawyer to file for a stalking injunction?

No. Section 784.0485(1)(d), F.S. says the cause of action does not require either party to be represented by an attorney, and the clerk must assist petitioners and provide simplified forms. Many people still choose to consult an attorney.

Is there a fee to file a stalking injunction petition in Florida?

No filing fee. Under s. 784.0485(2)(a), F.S., the clerk may not assess a filing fee for a petition for protection against stalking.

Can I secretly record the person who is stalking me?

Be very careful. Florida prohibits intercepting an oral communication made with a justified expectation of privacy without the consent of all parties, under s. 934.03, F.S. Preserve messages they send you and keep a written log, and talk to your attorney before recording anything with audio.

What if I do not know who is behind the messages?

That is common. An investigator can research what the accounts have posted publicly and connect them to a real identity where the public record supports it, then locate an address so the respondent can be named and served.

Documenting Stalking for an Injunction in Broward

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. This article is for the stage after that, or alongside it: when someone keeps turning up, keeps messaging, keeps watching, and you are thinking about asking a court to make it stop. Florida provides a specific civil remedy for that — an injunction for protection against stalking — and the strength of a petition depends heavily on how well the conduct has been documented. Done properly, documentation also keeps you on the right side of the law, which matters more than people expect.

What Florida law treats as stalking

Under s. 784.048, F.S., a person commits stalking by willfully, maliciously and repeatedly following, harassing or cyberstalking another person. The definitions do much of the work:

Harass means a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress and serves no legitimate purpose.
Course of conduct means a pattern of conduct made up of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, showing a continuity of purpose.
Cyberstalk includes a course of conduct communicating words, images or language through email or electronic communication directed at a specific person.
Stalking accompanied by a credible threat — one that places the person in reasonable fear for their safety, made with the apparent ability to carry it out — is aggravated stalking.

Notice the recurring idea: pattern. A single bad encounter is rarely enough. What a court looks for is a series of acts with continuity of purpose, and that is exactly what documentation is meant to show.

How the injunction works

Section 784.0485, F.S. creates a cause of action for an injunction for protection against stalking, which expressly includes cyberstalking. Key points from the statute:

The victim files a verified petition in circuit court, and no attorney is required (s. 784.0485(1)(a), (1)(d)).
It may be filed where the petitioner lives, where the respondent lives, or where the stalking occurred (s. 784.0485(1)(f)).
The clerk may not charge a filing fee for the petition, and must assist petitioners and provide simplified forms (s. 784.0485(2)(a), (2)(c)).
The petition must allege the specific facts and circumstances, and describe incidents specifying when and where they occurred (s. 784.0485(3)(a), (3)(d)).
The court may grant a temporary injunction without notice, effective for up to 15 days, pending a full hearing; at that stage evidence is generally limited to the verified petition and affidavits (s. 784.0485(5)).

The petition is signed under penalty of perjury. Accuracy is not optional, and a well-kept record is what lets you be precise.

Filing in Broward County

Broward County is Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit (s. 26.021(17), F.S.). According to the Broward Clerk’s Domestic Violence division, its intake unit assists people seeking injunctions for domestic, repeat, sexual, dating and stalking violence, and petitions can be filed through the e-filing portal or in person. The clerk asks petitioners to bring specific dates and locations of the incidents, along with the respondent’s name, physical description, address, employer and vehicle information where known.

Building a record that holds up

A contemporaneous log. Each incident, written the same day: date, time, place, what happened, who else was present, and how it affected you. Memory blurs; a log made at the time does not.
Preserve messages properly. Screenshots that show the sender’s name or number, the date and time, and the full thread — not just the worst line. Keep the originals on the device as well.
Usernames and profile links for online accounts, captured before they are deleted or renamed.
Photographs of damage, notes left behind, or a vehicle repeatedly parked nearby.
Police report numbers for anything reported, and names of witnesses.
Do not reply or retaliate. Engaging muddies the record and can be used against you.

Online conduct deserves particular care because it disappears easily. When a new account appears after you block an old one, record the date each appeared and what it sent. Capture the profile page as well as the message, since a profile photo, display name or linked account is often what later connects several accounts to one person. Save copies somewhere the other person cannot reach, and do not try to log in to, or guess the passwords of, any account that is not yours. Evidence you gathered improperly can undermine the petition it was meant to support.

What an investigator can do

Many petitioners know what is happening but not everything the petition asks for. A licensed investigator can help close those gaps lawfully:

Identify and locate the respondent — a current address, employer and vehicle, so the petition can be completed and the respondent served. See background investigations.
Attribute online conduct by researching what accounts have publicly posted and linking them to a real identity where the public record supports it, through a social media investigation and open-source intelligence.
Document a pattern of appearances — the respondent’s vehicle repeatedly present outside your home or workplace — through surveillance from public vantage points, with dated, timed photographs and video.
Organise everything into a chronology your attorney, or you, can use to prepare a precise petition.

What an investigator cannot do

No secret recording of conversations. Florida prohibits intercepting oral communications made with a justified expectation of privacy unless all parties consent, and a violation is a third-degree felony (s. 934.03, F.S.; s. 934.02, F.S.). That applies to you, too.
No tracking devices on the respondent’s vehicle or property without consent (s. 934.425, F.S.).
No accessing their accounts or devices.
No contact, confrontation or warnings. An investigator approaching the respondent can escalate the danger and can itself look like harassment.
No substitute for law enforcement. Threats and violence belong with the police first.

Hypothetical example: a petitioner receives messages from several new accounts after blocking a former acquaintance, and keeps seeing the same car near her Davie office. Her log records twelve incidents over five weeks. Public-record research ties the vehicle to the acquaintance and gives a current address and employer; open-source research shows two of the accounts reusing a photo from the acquaintance’s older public profile. Nobody was contacted and nothing was recorded unlawfully — but the petition now states specific dates, places and a named, locatable respondent.

After the petition is filed

The statute requires a hearing at the earliest possible time, and the respondent must be personally served with the petition, the notice of hearing and any temporary injunction before that hearing (s. 784.0485(4)). That is one more reason an accurate, current address for the respondent matters: an injunction that cannot be served cannot move forward. If a final injunction is entered, its terms remain in effect until modified or dissolved, and it must state on its face that it is valid and enforceable in all counties of Florida (s. 784.0485(6)(b), (6)(c)). Keep your log going after the order. If the conduct continues, a dated record of each violation is exactly what law enforcement and the court will ask for, and it is far easier to keep a habit going than to rebuild weeks of events from memory.

What to bring

Your incident log, however rough.
Screenshots and the devices that hold the originals.
Any police report numbers and existing court case numbers.
Everything you know about the respondent: names, accounts, vehicles, addresses, workplace.

Broward Private Investigations works with licensed Florida private investigators across Broward County. Your safety comes first; if you want help documenting what is happening and identifying the person responsible, contact us for a confidential consultation.

Documenting Stalking for an Injunction in Broward County