Charged with allegedly raping a lady in 2016, former prosecutor and one-time People journal “most eligible bachelor” Gary Zerola confronted his accuser in courtroom as she took the stand nonetheless shaking from what she stated occurred to her seven years in the past.
Zerola, 51, who served as a prosecutor in each Essex and Suffolk counties earlier than turning into a protection legal professional, has pleaded not responsible to accusations that he raped a 23-year-old girl in 2016.
The day started with intense opening arguments, through which prosecutor Tom Brant acknowledged in particular element what allegedly occurred between Zerola and the alleged sufferer and protection legal professional Rosemary Scapicchio calling the sufferer, by title, “a liar.” And then the sufferer herself took the stand.
Testifying simply earlier than lunch Tuesday, the sufferer was describing how the condominium of Zerola’s good friend, Johnathan, who she testified she had by no means met, regarded on the evening of Nov. 9, 2016.
That evening, she and her shut good friend went out for drinks following work as estheticians in Boston — and hadn’t even modified out of their work uniform scrubs. They have been going to satisfy up with Zerola, who was in, because the sufferer described it, a “sexual relationship” together with her good friend.
After having a number of drinks out, she testified, all of them took an Uber over to Johnathan’s condominium.
What allegedly occurred the subsequent morning, as she lay asleep on the brief part of the L-shaped sofa, was detailed in Brant’s opening arguments earlier.
“On the morning of Nov. 10, 2016, at a little before 7 a.m. (the victim), 23 years old, was asleep in a place she had never been before, an apartment she had never been before, on a couch she had never been on before. She didn’t wake up from an alarm, she didn’t wake up from a noise, what she awoke to was the defendant, Gary Zerola,” Brant stated, earlier than describing an act of sexual assault this newspaper received’t element.
“She looked at him as she awoke and said, ‘What are you doing?,’” Brant continued, including that Zerola stated nothing however continued and escalated the assault, even because the sufferer repeated, “‘What are you doing? What the (expletive) are you doing?!’”
Lies, stated Zerola’s protection in a scathing rebuttal.
“Plain and simple, she’s a liar,” stated legal professional Scapicchio, pacing earlier than the jury. “The story you just heard from the commonwealth doesn’t tell half of what happened.”
Where the sufferer stated that Zerola had been approaching to her all evening, with a lot touching and kissing on her — and had confirmed police the SnapChat movies of the offending moments when she spoke with them initially on May 12, 2016 — Scapicchio says a key second was omitted of her story, that she wouldn’t inform the police till an interview on May 15, 2023.
“What she doesn’t tell them, what she keeps from them, until May 15 of 2023, is that she kissed him in a SnapChat as well,” Scapicchio stated. “And it isn’t that she came in with this epiphany that she wanted to tell the truth … she told that story because we sent documents to the commonwealth proving that she’s a liar.”
Scapicchio went on to say that within the occasions for the reason that alleged assault, the alleged sufferer has behaved in ways in which don’t comport with anticipated shows from the sufferer of a rape, together with posting social media content material with Zerola in a pleasant method.
Scapicchio pressed the alleged sufferer on the stand to reconcile varied statements that she has made main as much as trial, together with that the sufferer had stated she had by no means been alone with Zerola besides when he got here into her office for appointments.
Scapicchio, nonetheless, stated that the alleged sufferer and Zerola had been alone collectively, although, when he took her for a bike journey. The alleged sufferer conceded that she did this, for “maybe 5 minutes,” however that isn’t what she meant, she meant that they had by no means frolicked or socialized earlier than.
It was on this level that got here essentially the most surprising second within the case: when Scapicchio requested the alleged sufferer if she remembered performing oral intercourse on Zerola in a storage following that journey.
The alleged sufferer appeared shocked by the query, saying: “I would NEVER do that. That is (expletive) bull (expletive)!”
During his opening assertion — and recalled throughout his redirect examination of the alleged sufferer — Brant stated that none of what got here earlier than them issues, and that each one that issues is consent.
“This drinking, and having fun, and going out to a strip club (that was closed), has nothing to do with consent,” Brant stated. “Gary Zerola on the morning of Nov. 10, used his access, used his opportunity, to pull the scrubs down. It was so easy.”
Zerola was a legal protection legal professional forward of those expenses. He additionally spent a yr as a prosecutor within the Essex DA’s workplace and two months as a prosecutor within the Suffolk DA’s workplace, in line with the Suffolk DA’s workplace.
Once dubbed Boston’s most eligible bachelor by People journal in 2001 and named a finalist for ABC’s first season of “The Bachelor,” Zerola additionally has a pending cost accusing him of rape from 2021. He pleaded not responsible on that cost after he was indicted.
Prosecutors, in that case, stated Zerola and a then 21-year-old girl met by means of a good friend, and the three of them went to a non-public occasion with a number of dozen different folks at a Boston bar, after which he drove her residence. Then, as the girl was drunk and asleep in her personal mattress, she awoke to search out Zerola sexually assaulting her, prosecutors stated.
The high-profile legal professional was additionally accused in 2006 of raping two ladies in his North End condominium and was acquitted on these expenses. In 2007 he was accused of raping a lady in a Miami Beach resort, however these expenses have been dismissed.
He is again in courtroom Wednesday.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”