Criminal Justice
A ‘Most Eligible Bachelor’ Lawyer Goes on Trial for Sexual Assault
Posted Jan 8, 2008, 07:03 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A onetime lawyer who was named one of People magazine's most eligible bachelors in 2001 goes on trial today for the first of three alleged attacks on women he met in bars.
Gary Zerola is accused of attacking two 19-year-olds in Boston in 2004 and 2006, allegedly raping one woman in his apartment and ripping the clothes off another who was able to dial 911 on her cell phone, the Associated Press reports. In a Florida case, he is accused of forcing another woman to take pills and then attacking her while she was unconscious, the wire service says.
Zerola was placed in foster care at age 3 and shuffled between foster homes until he was permanently placed with a Boston lawyer. After becoming a lawyer himself, Zerola became an advocate for foster kids and worked as a prosecutor in child abuse and domestic violence cases. He later became a criminal defense lawyer.
Besides appearing in People magazine, Zerola also tried out for the TV reality show The Bachelor.