Gary Zerola, former Boston lawyer, convicted of rape in 2021

A former Boston criminal defense attorney was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison Monday after being found guilty of raping a 21-year-old woman in her Boston apartment in 2021, court records show.

Gary Zerola, 52, will likely serve his sentence at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk, according to court records.

After Zerola’s verdict, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said “insidious cases” like Zerola’s often presented “real challenges” in court.

“I want to thank the survivor in this case for her courage and resilience, for her willingness to testify in court and tell her truth,” he said, according to an audio recording provided by his office. “That must have been extraordinarily difficult.”

Hayden’s office had advocated for a prison sentence of nine to 13 years for Zerola.

Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum, who prosecuted the case, said prosecutors viewed the case as a “relief and a certain responsibility” – not a victory.

“The truly just situation would have been if this had never happened,” he said. “But we are relieved and grateful that the jury confirmed what happened to the survivor in this case.”

Zerola’s victim, identified only by her initials in the victim impact statement, said she had recurring nightmares as a result of the attack.

She also describes how embarrassed she was to “contact” Zerola after she found out through her Google search that he had previously been charged with rape in Massachusetts.

“Since this incident, I have developed a deep-seated fear and distrust of men that has rendered my dating life nonexistent,” she wrote. “I find it difficult to feel any attraction to men at all anymore. I don’t date, have affairs, or enter into relationships. I am extremely vigilant and scared.”

In June, a jury convicted Zerola of rape after five hours of deliberation, but acquitted him of the more serious charges of aggravated rape and burglary, the office of Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said at the time.

Zerola was previously acquitted of two rapes in Massachusetts – in 2023 and 2008. His most recent trial, which ended in a conviction, stemmed from a night in January 2021 when he went out drinking with a woman he was dating and her friend. The woman he raped was a friend of the woman he was dating, and the three of them were partying together at Zerola’s expense, according to Hayden’s office.

The victim was too drunk, so Zerola and the woman he was with helped her back to her Beacon Hill apartment, Hayden’s office said at the time.

According to Hayden’s office, Zerola then went back to the victim’s apartment and raped her while she slept.

In June 2023, Zerola was found not guilty on two counts of rape in connection with the sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman in a North End apartment in 2016. Prosecutors accused him of raping his girlfriend’s co-worker after she fell asleep on a couch following a long night of partying. Zerola’s lawyers successfully argued that the sexual contact was consensual.

In 2008, Zerola was found not guilty of rape and attempted rape in separate trials. Earlier this decade, sexual assault charges were brought against him in New Orleans and Miami, but were later dropped.

According to the Associated Press, in 2000, Zerola worked for one year as an assistant district attorney in Essex County and two months in Suffolk County.

In 2001, Zerola was named one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors by People magazine.