Furious alleged rape victim of NJ attorney Matthew Nilo says he’s ‘evil’
New Jersey attorney Matthew Nilo’s first alleged rape victim sat in the courtroom today visibly shaking with anger after his lawyer told a judge his family has raised $500,000 cash of his $5million bail and will be set free.
‘That’s bullsh*t,’ the woman, who wished to go by Lori, told DailyMail.com. ‘He literally hid from cops for 16 years. How is he not a flight risk?’
Nilo, 35, charged with with three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault with the intent to rape and one count of indecent assault and battery, has been locked up in a Boston jail.
In an exclusive interview outside the court with DailyMail.com, Lori explained how the alleged rape sixteen years ago destroyed her life, causing her to have a mental breakdown and forcing her onto disability.
Now 39, she thought her assailant would never get caught until cops recently showed up to her home with news of his imminent arrest.
Matthew Nilo’s alleged victim Lori spoke to DailyMail.com outside of a Boston courtroom this morning. ‘He’s a very evil person and he used weapons and force to violently kidnap and rape multiple women,’ she said
Nilo, 35, has pleaded not guilty to raping four different women when he was a college student in Boston in 2007 and 2008
Nilo is seen partying with friends during his college days in 2007. ‘I recognized him from all the pictures and especially some pictures online that show him from the time (of the crimes),’ Lori said
‘The cops came to my house and said they had identified him and they said that he was identified by DNA – and I was just relieved,’ she exclusively told DailyMail.com. ‘I was in disbelief and awe because I didn’t think he was going to get caught. I’ve been waiting for years for him to get arrested.’
She turned up for his bail hearing Monday, but had no chance to confront him because he didn’t have to appear in court.
‘I had to show it’s not forgotten about, and I’m not going to just let this go,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to continue to speak my mind and make him aware that this is not his city anymore. Boston belongs to us now.’
‘He’s a very evil person and he used weapons and force to violently kidnap and rape multiple women,’ she continued. ‘I can’t get into the details of my case, but I was his first victim, and the charges that are brought against him for me are aggravated rape and kidnapping.
Nilo, who once lived in the North End, was arrested at his home in Weehawken, New Jersey, more than 15 years after he allegedly terrorized four victims
She was 23 at the time of the attack, which she said occurred at gunpoint.
‘I can’t say the details of the case, but he was evil,’ she continued. ‘I’ve dealt with it every day. He’s literally taken 15 years of my life away from me. I’ve lived in fear every day of my life since.’
‘And I don’t know how they can let him back into the world,’ she said of him being allowed to post bail.
‘I think it’s crazy. But that’s the law in Massachusetts, I guess. I think he’s just trying to make a joke of the courtroom, coming up with his bail. I don’t think he cares at all. I don’t think he has any remorse. I think he thought he could get away with this forever. And honestly, I thought he might.’
She said Nilo was a stranger to her when he confronted her on the street, allegedly kidnapped and raped her.
‘I’m out of work and I’ve been on disability for post-traumatic stress,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to deal with flashbacks, just like replaying what happened in my head, what I could have done differently. How come I couldn’t get away fast enough. Like so many things that I wish happened that didn’t.
‘You’ll know by the end of the trial, when the details come out, just how horrific this man acted,’ she said.
‘And the reason I’m so upset that he’s even walking the streets is that I don’t fear just for myself but any female that he’s even close to that doesn’t even know who he is.’
Lori was astonished to learn that Nilo was recently engaged and that his fiancée showed up to his arraignment last week.
‘He has everybody fooled that he is just some smart, regular guy, but he’s not,’ she said. ‘He’s a serial rapist, and not once, twice, three times, but four times in Massachusetts. And he’s done damage to my soul that is irreversible.’
She said she has no doubt that Milo is the one who raped her.
‘I recognized him from all the pictures and especially some pictures online that show him from the time (of the crimes),’ she said.
Lori was astonished to learn that Nilo was recently engaged and that his fiancée showed up to his arraignment last week. ‘He has everybody fooled,’ she said
Nilo’s new fiancée Laura Griffin, 37, stayed silent and emotionless during a hearing last week
His fiancée gripped the religious beads throughout the hearing but did not say anything as she exited the court
Nilo will leave the jail with a GPS ankle monitor and will surrender his passport. He has been ordered to have no contact with victims and witnesses and to stay at least 1,000 feet away from scene of the crimes, Terminal Street in Charlestown.
At the time of the alleged rapes, Boston Police Department issued a warning that a man was attacking women after offering them rides home.
Nilo was identified to law enforcement through family members who voluntarily sent DNA samples to a genealogy database, like ’23 and Me.’
According to a police affidavit, a dozen FBI agents and Boston Police officers arrested Nilo at his luxury apartment complex.
They lured him down to the lobby under the pretense that ‘a large package had been delivered to him that did not fit in the … lockers where the residents pick up packages.’
He was with his fiancée at the time of his arrest, and immediately invoked his Miranda rights.
Nilo is accused of assaulting the four women in or around Terminal Street in Charleston on August 18, 2007, November 22, 2007, August 5, 2008 and December 23, 2008.
Police revisited the investigation last year, using ‘forensic investigative genetic genealogy’ which resulted in Nilo being placed under surveillance in New York
A 23-year-old woman claims that she was approached by a man in his 20’s after leaving a friend’s home in the State Street area in the early hours.
She said she thought she knew the man, who offered her a ride to help her look for her vehicle before driving her to Terminal Street.
Nilo then allegedly told her to ‘shut up’ or he would kill her, claiming to have a weapon before raping her on a grassy area near railroad tracks, according to court filings.
The second attack took place in November 2007, when a woman, 23, was leaving a bar on State Street after attending a high school reunion.
Documents say that she got into Nilo’s car, thinking it was a taxi, before giving him the address of an ATM near her apartment.
She claims that the man flashed a knife at her after she told him he missed the address, driving her to Terminal Street where he ordered her out of the car before raping her.
The third assault took place in August 2008, after Nilo allegedly approached a 36-year-old woman on Boston Common, promising her money if she went to Charlestown with him.
When they exited the car at Terminal Street, he allegedly ‘tackled her to the ground, held a gun to her back’ and raped her repeatedly.
Prosecutors said that all three women underwent a sexual assault examination, which yielded a DNA profile, which matched the male in each attack.
The final assault took place in December 2008, where a 44-year-old woman was attacked as she was jogging in the area of Terminal Street.
Court documents claim that he approached her from behind, tackled her to the ground and sexually assaulted her.
The man, who was later allegedly identified as Nilo, repeatedly told her ‘I have a gun’ before she managed to escape by poking at his eyes while wearing a glove.
Police revisited the investigation last year, using ‘forensic investigative genetic genealogy’ which resulted in Nilo being placed under surveillance in New York.
The filing, obtained by the Boston Globe, said: ‘FBI agents were able to obtain various utensils and drinking glasses they watched the defendant use at a corporate event.
‘From one of the glasses the Boston Police Crime Lab obtained a male DNA profile, which was found to match the suspect profile from the three Terminal Street rapes.’
The glove that the fourth woman used to poke her attacker with was also tested, with investigators ‘determining that this profile was 314 times more likely to belong to Matthew Nilo than to any other male in the population.’
Boston Police Department has arrested six people, including Nilo, accused of years-old rapes using a $2.5 million federal grant to re-examine ‘unsolved cases that present the greatest threat to public safety.’
Nilo’s lawyer Joseph Cataldo claimed that he has received ‘no indication’ that a search warrant was obtained before they collected Nilo’s DNA samples.
Several photos posted to Nilo’s Facebook page at the time showed him living a life full of parties and drinking with his friends
In one of his old photos, he was caught peeing in a hallway. Prosecutors said that all three women underwent a sexual assault examination, which yielded a DNA profile, which matched the male in each attack
Speaking outside court, he said: ‘My educated guess is there are no search warrants. Obtaining DNA and analyzing it without a warrant based on probable cause, I posit that is unconstitutional.’
Nilo grew up in Boston and attended Boston Latin School, before graduating in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin Madison where he studied psychology.
He earned a law degree at the University of San Francisco in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile and records posted to the New York State Unified Court System website.
At the time of his arrest, Nilo was working as cyber claims counsel for Cowbell Cyber, and previously worked as a paralegal at the Law offices of Iannella and Mummolo for the two years between his bachelor’s degree and when he started law school.
He was then an associate at the San Francisco-based Clyde & Co and then an associate at Atheria Law in New York.
Cowbell Cyber suspended Nilo when they learned of the charges, saying in a statementL ‘Matthew Nilo was an employee of Cowbell and was hired in January, 2023 after passing our background check. Mr. Nilo’s employment at Cowbell has been suspended pending further investigation.’
Nilo has also lived in Wisconsin and New York and authorities urged anyone who thinks they may have been victimized by Nilo to contact Boston police or the FBI.