BOSTON — A longtime criminal defense attorney who once worked as a prosecutor was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on rape and aggravated burglary charges in connection with an alleged sexual assault that occured last January.
Gary Zerola, 49, of Salem, is alleged to have sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman while she was asleep and incapacitated with alcohol following a party both of them had attended, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.
Zerola allegedly entered the woman’s Boston apartment shortly after 2 a.m. to commit the sexual assault, prosecutors said.
The defendant, who worked as an assistant district attorney in Essex County for a year, and in Suffolk County for two months in 2000, has been held without bail since his January 15 arraignment in Boston Municipal Court, prosecutors said.
At the time of his arrest, Zerola had already been facing charges in the same court for the alleged rape of a different woman in 2016, and had posted $10,000 bail in that case, prosecutors said.
The indictments were returned to court on Tuesday. The DA’s office said more information will become available when Zerola is arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court, a date that has not yet been determined.