Prosecutor: 'Bachelor' Candidate Is Serial Rapist

BOSTON -- A Boston attorney once considered by ABC television to star in “The Bachelor” is, according to prosecutors, a serial rapist.

Gary Zerola is charged with the rape and attempted rape of two 19-year-old women in 2004 and 2006. He is also facing charges in Florida that he drugged and then raped an 18-year-old college student he met in a Miami Beach club.

Prosecutor Suzanne Kontz said in court Monday that Zerola took one victim he’d met at a Boston bar to Neiman Marcus and bought her a $700 dress and $250 shoes. She then alleged that he took the woman back to his apartment and slammed her head against a door and knocked a phone from her hand as she tried to dial 911.

“He spent some time grooming these girls,” Kontz told The Boston Herald. “He would clearly spend money on them. He would clearly follow up with them.”

Zerola, 36, was named one of People magazine's "Most Eligible Bachelors" in 2003.

Zerola has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Janice Basil, argued that he “is simply a man who meets women in bars.”

Police in Florida charge that last month he took a college student he met in a bar to a nearby hotel. ''He held her face with his hand and forced her to take an unknown amount of pills with an unknown liquid,'' according to a report filed by police.

Zerola was considered by ABC to be a candidate for "The Bachelor" in the first season of the reality program.