Boston criminal defense attorney Gary Zerola found guilty of rape in split verdict

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, a jury has found Boston criminal defense attorney Gary Zerola guilty of raping a 21-year-old woman in her bed in January 2021 while she was sleeping after a night of heavy drinking.

On Wednesday, after five hours of deliberation, a Suffolk County Superior Court jury found the 52-year-old lawyer guilty of one count of rape, but acquitted him of the more serious charges of aggravated rape and burglary, prosecutors said.

The verdict is scheduled for July 15.

“These cases are always difficult, and this victim deserves tremendous credit for taking the stand and telling the jury what happened to her that night,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “I thank the jury for considering all of the information presented to them and reaching a just verdict.”

According to the Boston Globe, up to a dozen women have accused Zerola of rape in “barely distinguishable assaults” since 1996.

The former prosecutor and current defense attorney had been acquitted of the charges in three previous trials, the most recent of which took place last year.

Zerola’s latest trial

Zerola’s June 2024 trial stems from a night in January 2021 when he went out drinking with the victim, prosecutors said. The victim was a friend of a woman Zerola was dating, and the three of them partied together at Zerola’s expense.

The victim was too drunk, so Zerola and the woman he was with helped her back to her Beacon Hill apartment, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the victim’s boyfriend initially prevented Zerola from helping the victim undress and caused him to leave the apartment, but soon afterward he took her home in an Uber, the Globe reported.

Zerola later entered the victim’s apartment “without permission” and raped her while she slept, prosecutors said. Prosecutors claim she woke up to Zerola’s rape around 2 a.m., the Globe reported.

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“She pulled away, yelled at him to leave, and immediately reported the rape to her friend via FaceTime video call,” court documents say, according to the Globe.

Prosecutors said the victim’s boyfriend saw how distressed the victim was and heard Zerola in the background saying the victim had left him her keys and told him to come back to the apartment, the Globe reported.

He left the apartment soon after, and the next day the victim reported the rape to the police and underwent a sexual abuse examination at a hospital.

During the trial, Zerola’s lawyer, well-known Boston criminal defense attorney Rosemary Scapicchio, called her accuser a liar and argued unsuccessfully that her account of that night was full of contradictions, the Globe reported.

Zerola’s legal history

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.

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In the 1990s, Zerola was accused of at least three more sexual harassment allegations, according to the Globe. Despite this, he was named one of People Magazine’s “Most Eligible Bachelors” in 2001.

A graduate of Suffolk University School of Law, Zerola briefly worked as a prosecutor in Essex and Suffolk counties more than two decades ago before becoming a criminal defense attorney.