Lori Pinkham, the first alleged victim in the case against Boston rape suspect Matthew Nilo, has condemned Nilo’s release on bail days after coming forward about the alleged 2007 attack in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
“I’m in disbelief that he is back on the streets and also fear he will try and retaliate against me,” Pinkham said in a statement.
Nilo is accused of raping three women and sexually assaulting a fourth woman in a violent spree that haunted the Charlestown area of Boston in 2007 and 2008. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released Thursday on $500,000 cash bail. The 35-year-old New York City attorney was ordered to wear a GPS tracker, surrender his passport and have no contact with the victims as part of his bail conditions.
In August 2007, Pinkham says she was walking to her car after work at a club in a desolate area when the suspect pulled up next to her and asked if she needed a ride. Pinkham says she told him no, and then he kidnapped her at gunpoint, drove her to an industrial part of the city and raped her.
“The farther we went, the more panic just started setting in. The door was locked, so as soon as he stopped the car and I was able to get it open, I tried to run as fast as I could. He caught up to me and he hit me with a gun repeatedly. And I fell on some train tracks. That’s when he raped me,” Pinkham told ABC News’ Erielle Reshef.
“I kept thinking, ‘Is this a nightmare? I’m gonna wake up. This is a nightmare. I’m gonna wake up,'" Pinkham said.
Lori Pinkham is shown during an interview with ABC News.
ABC News
Pinkham alleges the suspect then stole all of her belongings, including her passport, Social Security card, debit card and credit cards. She says she laid on the train tracks in shock for around four hours before the sun came up and spotted someone down the street who let her use their phone to call 911.
Shortly after, an ambulance arrived and took Pinkham to a nearby hospital, where she was examined for sexual assault and underwent a rape exam. The Boston Police Crime Lab later obtained a male DNA profile from her exam, but no suspect came up, according to court documents.
The same DNA profile was linked to three more sexual assaults in 2007 and 2008, prosecutors said.
As the years passed, Pinkham says she began to lose hope that a suspect would ever be identified. The rapes remained unsolved until last year, when Boston police used DNA from rape kits and checked them against publicly accessible genealogy websites. Investigators later followed Nilo to a corporate event and matched DNA from drinking glasses and utensils he used to the four victims, prosecutors allege.
Pinkham, now 39, says she is still affected by the violent attack almost 16 years after it occurred.
“A big part of my life stopped that day. I couldn’t work. I didn’t want to spend time with anybody. I will get panic attacks, sometimes, out of nowhere. It’s been really hard,” Pinkham said.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Pinkham’s mom, Janine McGovern, told ABC News. “I feel like there’s a part of her that didn’t get to continue her life, you know? So she didn’t finish growing up to become a woman with a career and a family. But for me, I didn’t get to see her grow up. I kind of lost her at a young age.”
Matthew Nilo is arraigned on rape charges stemming from assaults in Charlestown, in 2007 and 2008 in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, June 5, 2023. His attorney, Joseph Cataldo is at left.
Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool
Nilo has maintained his innocence and is scheduled to go on trial next year. His next court date is July 13. Nilo’s attorney, Joseph Cataldo, argued in court his client’s bail should be lowered due to his accomplishments over the years.
“He’s gone on to college, law school. He’s engaged to be married. [He] has no, to the best of my knowledge, history of defaults or any kind of higher convictions in this state or any other state,” Cataldo said.
Cataldo later told reporters outside the courthouse, “It seems they obtained DNA evidence without ever obtaining a search warrant. If that turns out to be true, that’s an issue that will be pursued vigorously.”
Meanwhile, Pinkham is ready to face her alleged attacker in court, telling ABC News, “I’ll go to all of those court dates to make sure that I get to speak my voice and also for the other victims that don’t want to come forward, I want to be there for them.”
“He can’t terrorize this city anymore. We’re not his prey. He can’t be a predator in Boston or anywhere else,” Pinkham said.
ABC News' Sally Hawkins, Lisa Zobel, Rachel Wenzlaff and Erielle Reshef contributed to this report.
