Newsletter Signup
Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com
Matthew Nilo case: New Jersey lawyer facing new charges in North End sexual assaults
The 35-year-old is facing charges related to a string of mid-2000s sexual assaults in Charlestown and the North End.
A New Jersey lawyer charged in a string of mid-2000s sexual assaults in Charlestown was indicted on additional charges Tuesday stemming from five more alleged attacks in the North End.
Matthew Nilo, 35, was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on seven new charges: rape, aggravated rape, three counts of assault with intent to rape, and two counts of indecent assault and battery.
More on Matthew Nilo:
The Suffolk District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday’s charges are related to five attacks on four women in 2007 and 2008 in the North End, where Nilo lived at the time. The alleged assaults happened in January 2007, July 2007, January 2008, and July 2008; the DA’s office said Nilo attacked one of the victims twice, 11 days apart.
Advertisement:
“The incidents followed a similar pattern,” the DA’s office said in a press release. “The victims were attacked while they were walking alone, in the dark, either at night or early in the morning.”
Nilo’s attorney, Joseph Cataldo, told Boston.com in an email that his client “denies all the allegations including the latest charges.”
“You can expect both a legal and factual challenge to the government’s case,” Cataldo wrote.
In a statement, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said prosecutors will release more information at Nilo’s arraignment, “but I can tell you today that DNA evidence played a role in these new indictments.”
Advertisement:
Nilo previously pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault with intent to rape, and one count of indecent assault and battery in the Charlestown assaults, which occurred in 2007 and 2008.
To track down a suspect in the Charlestown cases, authorities paired new advances in DNA testing with investigative genetic genealogy, which includes submitting an assailant’s DNA profile to two commercial genealogy databases, The Boston Globe previously reported.
Prosecutors in the Charlestown attacks said FBI agents obtained utensils and drinkware that they saw Nilo use at an event, and investigators then built a DNA profile that allegedly matched the suspect’s.
Lori Pinkham, one of the women Nilo allegedly assaulted in Charlestown, told ABC News in an interview this month that she began to lose hope that investigators would ever identify a suspect in her 2007 rape.
“He can’t terrorize this city anymore. We’re not his prey,” Pinkham said. “He can’t be a predator in Boston or anywhere else.”
Nilo was released on $500,000 bail on June 15. He will be formally charged on the new counts at his next court date on July 13, the DA’s office said.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com