 |
Gary Zerola is a former Suffolk prosecutor. |
After a night of drinking, clubbing, and taking pain-killers, the 20-year-old woman testified, she ended up on Gary Zerola's couch, fighting to stop him from unzipping the $450 dress the noted Boston bachelor had bought her that day.
"I was, like, really scared," the Newton woman testified yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court, where Zerola, a lawyer once named by People magazine as one of the nation's top bachelors, is on trial on charges of attempted rape. "He kept trying to take my dress off," she said. "I told him not to. . . . He was totally hurting me."
The woman, 19 at the time of the alleged assault, was on the stand for nearly three hours and is expected to resume her testimony today. She said Zerola pinned her to the coach with his knees and tried to block her from dialing 911 on her cellphone.
Shortly before the woman began testifying, Zerola's Boston-based lawyer, Janice Bassil, told the jury of 10 women and four men that the woman had fabricated the episode after she had manipulated Zerola into buying her an expensive dress and shoes from Neiman Marcus.
"She couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it, much less Gary Zerola's life," Bassil told the jury. "She lies when she needs to. . . . She will lie to you."
Bassil said the woman was a regular on the Boston party scene. "She liked to party," Bassil said. "She liked to drink. She liked to do drugs. She acted sophisticated beyond her years."
The woman's name was disclosed in court, but it is Globe policy to not name alleged victims of sexual assault without their consent. Through prosecutors, she declined yesterday to have her name published.
The woman also testified that she is a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and that she is dyslexic and has ADHD and learning disabilities.
Zerola, 36, was selected in 2001 as one of the 50 top bachelors by People. A foster child who established a nonprofit organization to provide gifts to foster children, Zerola also worked as a Suffolk County prosecutor in the late 1990s.
Zerola is being tried separately on rape and other charges in connection with a Feb. 28, 2004, episode involving a different 19-year-old acquaintance. He was arrested in October on charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted a third woman in Miami Beach.
Many of Zerola's siblings were in court yesterday, listening to the woman and to Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Suzanne M. Kontz lay out the prosecution's case against Zerola, who is not practicing law.
Kontz said the case was straightforward.
"He decided he wanted to have sex with her," she told the jury. "He made the decision to use force and tried to take sex from her - and here we are."
Kontz said Zerola first met the woman in July 2006 at a Boston nightclub. They spent the evening socializing, exchanged phone numbers, and shared text messages and phone calls in the days that followed.
According to Kontz and the woman, the woman contacted Zerola Aug. 17, 2006 and they agreed to go shopping, an idea they had discussed in earlier conversations. They ended up at Neiman Marcus where Zerola paid for a $450 Dolce & Gabbana leopard print dress and a pair of shoes.
The woman said she felt awkward taking the dress from Zerola, with whom she had no dating relationship.
They spent the evening visiting various nightclubs, during which they both took Vicodin pain-killers that he provided, the woman said. She also testified she saw Zerola snort what she thought was cocaine during the evening.
About 3 a.m., although she repeatedly told Zerola she wanted to go home, they were allegedly grappling in his Commercial Street apartment.
The prosecutor said that police tracked the woman's 911 call and that Zerola stopped the assault only when he saw police lights outside.
John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
