Accused serial rapist of Charlestown and the North End Matthew Nilo appeared in court on Halloween day for attorneys to attempt to settle some background issues.
Nilo, 35, a New York City corporate attorney who lives in New Jersey, was arrested at the end of May and charged with a series of rapes in the Terminal Street area of Charlestown in 2007 and 2008. He was charged a month later with another series of rapes over an 18-month period between January 2007 and July 2008. He pleaded not guilty to each charge and has been out on a combined bail of $550,000.
On Tuesday, prosecutor Lynn Feigenbaum and defense attorneys Rosemary Scapicchio and Joseph Cataldo met briefly in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston before Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley to argue over the prosecution’s proposals for a buccal swab from Nilo and to redact court documents provided for him.
“The Commonwealth is only seeking that the names and identifying information — names, addresses — will not be provided in writing to the defendant at this time,” ADA Lynn Feigenbaum said of the motion that had not yet been filed with the court but had been shared with the defense, adding that the prosecution would provide the defendant with redacted forms of the documents. “I don’t think that that’s an unreasonable request.”
Scapicchio made sure that redacting the names and addresses was the only thing the prosecution wanted to redact from her client’s copy of court documents and that she would want to see that in writing. She added, “I never want my clients to have contact information. I don’t think it’s a good policy.”
Scapicchio asked that Feigenbaum’s motion for a buccal swab — which is a cheek swab for genetic testing — be filed well ahead of the next date so that she could file her own response to oppose it.
Curley said that the prosecution’s motion should be filed by the end of the day on Nov. 30 and set the next motions hearing for Dec. 21, 2 p.m. The presumptive trial date is June 25, 2024.
