Gary Zerola, Boston lawyer convicted of rape, to be sentenced in Suffolk Supreme Court

“To this day, I still have nightmares about someone breaking into my apartment and trying to attack me. I’ve never had a nightmare before in my life. I haven’t slept for many nights,” she wrote. “Since he committed this crime, I have suffered from extreme paranoia. Every time I’m in my apartment, my door is locked and I live in constant fear that someone will come in without my permission and hurt me again.”

The woman said she met Zerola when he was 49 and she was 21 through a friend who was dating him, court records show. The trio went to a private party in the North End on Nov. 11, 2020.

“Zerola paid the entire $2,000 bar bill and generously tipped the staff while saying he planned a ‘threesome’ with the two women, even though they had expressed no such interest,” prosecutors wrote.

After the party, the woman became nauseous from the alcohol and dizziness and vomited in Zerola’s car. Zerola and her friend then helped her upstairs to her apartment, the document says.

“Zerola attempted to help the victim undress and get into bed, but the girlfriend prevented her from doing so and caused Zerola to leave the apartment,” prosecutors said. Zerola then sent the victim’s girlfriend home in an Uber and returned to the sleeping woman’s apartment alone, the document states.

The woman woke up around 2 a.m. while Zerola was raping her, prosecutors said.

“She pulled away, yelled at him to leave, and immediately reported the rape to her friend via FaceTime video call,” the document states. “The friend noticed the victim’s distraught reaction and saw and heard Zerola in the background as he falsely claimed that the victim told him to take her keys and come back.”

Zerola then left the apartment and later that day the woman went to a hospital where she was examined for sexual assault. According to prosecutors, she reported the rape to the police.

Zerola, who worked as a prosecutor in Essex County for a year before going into criminal defense, has been accused of rape by about a dozen women since 1996, according to court records. The assaults were almost indistinguishable.

In 2008, two independent juries found him not guilty of rape and attempted rape. Sexual assault charges were also dropped in Miami Beach and New Orleans, while the statute of limitations has expired on at least three allegations dating to the 1990s, court records show.

Last summer, Zerola was acquitted after a four-day trial of raping a 23-year-old woman on a couch. in 2016 after a night of partying in the North End. The woman testified that Zerola raped her despite her protests and did not stop until she got up from a couch and woke up her friend, who was in a casual relationship with Zerola at the time.

After the verdict was announced on Monday, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin R. Hayden said he praised the woman “for her courage and resilience” and “for her willingness to testify in court and tell the truth.”

“It must have been extraordinarily difficult,” Hayden said.

Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum, who read the victim’s statement in court, said that while prosecutors felt the conviction and sentence resulted in some accountability, they did not view it as a victory.

“The truly just situation would have been if this had never happened,” he said. “She was incredibly strong to even go public, let alone testify about it in court.”

Travis Andersen of the Globe contributed to this report.

John R. Ellement can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @JREbosglobeEmily Sweeney can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.