Gary Zerola, Professional Victim

Boston attorney Gary Zerola was acquitted today in his 2nd rape charge trial in a Boston courtroom of multiple charges of rape and supplying alcohol to a minor, the second such trial this year with almost the exact same charges and counter charges, that it was the 30-something Zerola who was the victim and not his accusers, two underage girls in two separate cases.

In yesterday’s acquittal Zerola was accused of raping and sodomizing a 19-year-old girl in his Beacon Hill condo back in 2004. It took a Suffolk County jury two hours to return with the not-guilty verdicts.

While Zerola was acquitted the jury never learned that Zerola had just wrapped up a similar trial with the same outcome back in January, charges of attacking and attempting to rape yet another 19-year-old girl. Zerola was acquitted of those charges. The jury never heard that Zerola, while out on bond in October of 2007, was arrested and charged with attempted rape of another young girl, this time an 18-year-old in a Miami Beach hotel.

Zerola was charged with two felonies from the Miami incident back in October which was when DBKP first heard of the former People magazine “Most Eligible Bachelor” and his string of teens accusing him of date rape.

Zerola, while free on bond stemming from his two previous rape charges, had skipped the state to fly to Miami to watch a football game. While there Zerola allegedly “force fed” drugs to an 18-year-old girl in a Miami Beach hotel room then attempted to rape her. Zerola is charged with two counts of Sexual Battery, both felonies. His next court date is May 14 in the Miami-Dade County Courts.

“I have faith in God and I have faith in our system of justice. Today is a victory for all those people who are falsely accused. If you speak the truth long enough and loud enough, eventually you will be heard.” Gary Zerola after being acquitted in second rape trial, March 26, 2008

And yet, it depends on what the “truth” really is, doesn’t it. The truth is, Zerola’s accusers faced the toughest type of rape accusation to prove, that of date rape. Compounded by the fact that the police were not able to provide the type of solid hard evidence such as DNA with which a jury can hang a verdict on made it easier for Zerola’s defense to go after the girls, claiming both were “habitual liars” and “partiers” and that the 30-something Zerola was the victim.

While Zerola is probably celebrating his latest acquittal there’s still some lingering questions. Zerola claimed in both trials that he was the victim, that his 19-yr-old accusers were habitual liars and party girls. It’s yet to be determined whether Zerola will use his now standardized defense against the 18-yr-old in Miami Beach who accused him of attempting to drug then rape her back in October of 2007. A judge found Zerola in violation of his bond, stemming from the 2004 and 2006 cases still yet to be tried, of Zerola leaving Boston without permission and promptly threw him into jail.

The Company You Keep

In 2004 Gary Zerola was 33 years old and accused of the rape and sodomy of a 19-yr-old at his Beacon Hill condo. It was the very same MO two years later, except this time, Zerola was now 35-years-old, the alleged victim, 19. In 2007, in Miami, Zerola was a 36-yr-old man accused by an 18-yr-old girl of attempting to forcefully feed her drugs and attempting to rape her. So far Zerola has been acquitted in the 2004 and ‘06 cases with the 2007 case still in Zerola’s future.

During the trial Zerola’s defense, the very same defense he used in his first trial, claimed the accuser was lying and that he, Zerola, was the victim. Zerola brought in “witnesses” who discredited the young women in both trials. Witnesses who were friends and acquaintances of Zerola’s. In the end, it was the two young girls testifying in a she said-they said type of trial with the girl, facing not only Zerola but his friends and cohorts who testified in Zerola’s favor.

Without hard evidence such as DNA or police investigating even the scene of the alleged crime, the jury is left to go on the word of the girl, trashed and tarnished by Zerola’s defense, and that of Zerola, now the victim, a man, according to his defense, wrongfully accused, supposedly in the wrong place at the wrong time, somehow attracting the wrong kind of “underage” girl. And yet the “wrong” place happened to be his very own apartment.

Presuppositions and Assumptions About Date Rape

While the jury may have had little go on by way of hard evidence there is also the matter of how a particular juror may perceive the subject of date or acquaintance rape. When the accuser claims an attempted rape but has little in the way of physical evidence such as the signs of being physically assaulted then the determination falls to she said:he said and some of the myths still cultivated by our society regarding date rape.

According to the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress some of the prevailing beliefs held about date rape include the myth that a woman who agrees to go to a man’s house or “parks” with him and gets raped “usually deserved it”. Another myth is that if a woman agrees to allow a man pay for meal then she “owes” him sex. Another is women who do not fight back haven’t been raped or intimate kissing or touching means the man now has carte blanche with the woman, sex-wise.

More myths include most women lie about date rape over regrets of having consensual sex and that women who say “no” really mean yes. Once a man reaches a certain point of arousal he can’t hold back and can’t help “forcing” themselves on woman and certain behaviors by women, such as dressing in a “provocative” way or drinking and/or doing drugs make rape the woman’s responsibility.

Gary Zerola, Professional Victim

Just how does a thirtysomething professional man, an attorney with ties to his community through various charity work, find himself victimized by these alleged “demented” teen-age girls so quick to accuse him of rape, sodomy, drugging, and false imprisonment?

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said he was troubled that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear evidence that Zerola had been accused in three separate incidents of the same type of crime by separate underage girls, that he believed this to be “critical” evidence of a potential serial predator.

Three Girls Who Cried Wolf?

The modus operandi of Zerola’s defense has been to attack the victims, in this case all three accusers were underage, 18 and 19-yr olds, unknown to each other, one living over a thousand miles away. In the 2006 case, Zerola met the girl at a club and the two exchanged text messages for a period of a month. Zerola let her drive his Porsche and then took her shopping, buying her a $450 designer dress and $200 shoes. He then took her to out on a night of drinking at several bars and clubs, the hotshot attorney and his underage date. She claims she wanted to call her parents to get a ride home but Zerola insisted he would take her. After they stopped at his apartment for her to use his bathroom she claims he attacked her.

“He started to be really aggressive … I said, ‘Seriously, Gary, what are you doing?’ ” she testified.

“He was scaring me,” she said. “I was like, ‘Gary, you’re really scaring me.’ ”

She said she struggled with Zerola, but he pinned her on the couch and tried to unzip her dress.

“He clearly was not letting me leave. I was now, like, basically crying. He was not letting me go,” she said.

Zerola’s attorney called the girl a “habitual liar” and a “partier”. And yet, the fact remains, the girl called 911 from her cell phone from inside Zerola’s apartment, the girl said he was “aggressive”, and the girl said he tried to take off her clothes and rape her. Would why a girl pick up a phone and dial 911? Even if she were a habitual liar and a party girl, why dial 911 when you know you’re summoning the police? And even if, say suppose, she were a habitual liar and a party girl, what if she were, in this instance, telling the truth?

Two years earlier another 19-yr-old girl claimed she was raped and sodomized by Gary Zerola in his Beacon Hill condo, Zerola’s defense painted her yet another habitual liar and party girl. While on bond, Zerola was arrested in Miami Beach, accused of attempted rape while trying to “forcefully” feed the girl drugs in a hotel.

Zerola’s third trial is in Miami, time will tell if he has a little more of a difficult time proving his case, that he’s once again a victim of an 18-yr-old hard partying harlot and habitual liar. If Zerola is once again acquitted will he be considered an innocent man wrongfully accused or something else, an attorney who knew how to chose his victims well and knew how to beat the system?

By LBG

Sources:
* Acquitted in 2nd Rape Charge Trial
* Gary Zerola: Former Eligible Bachelor Rape Trial Starts Tomorrow
Sources –
* whdh – Attempted Rape Trial Begins for famous bachelor
Source –
* DBKP – Boston Lawyer Faces Teen Rape Charges
Source - Zimbio – Zerola Found Not Guilty in 2nd Rape Rap
Source – American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress
Image - Gary Zerola

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