Gary Zerola convicted of rape

About a dozen women accused Zerola of raping them in indistinguishable cases since 1996, court records show.

He has rarely been prosecuted. Two separate juries acquitted him of rape and attempted rape in 2008. Sexual assault charges were 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 in a case in which he was accused of raping a 23-year-old woman after a night of partying in the North End in 2016. The woman testified that Zerola raped her silently despite her protests and did not stop until she got up from the couch and woke up her friend, who was in a casual relationship with Zerola at the time.

During the trial, Zerola’s lawyer Rosemary Scapicchio called the woman a “liar” and said her account of the rape was full of inconsistencies.

The victim in the case for which Zerola was sentenced Wednesday said she met him in 2020, when he was 49 and she was 21, through a friend who was dating Zerola, and the trio went to a private party in the North End on Nov. 11, 2020, court documents show.

“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 victim became nauseous from drunkenness and dizziness and vomited in Zerola’s car. According to the document, Zerola and her friend then helped her up the stairs to her apartment.

“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.

At around 2 a.m., the woman woke up 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 victim went to a hospital where she was examined for sexual assault. According to prosecutors, she reported the rape to police.

Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jeremycfox.