How FBI agents stalked alleged serial rapist Matthew Nilo in temptation room at NYC bar to get his DNA and crack the case
FBI agents stalked a New Jersey lawyer and suspected serial rapist in the “temptation room” of a popular Manhattan bar, collecting his DNA from a used fork to help crack the 16-year-old case, it was revealed in court Monday.The five G-men secretly coordinated with the hot spot’s staff to keep tabs on Matthew Nilo — and by the end of the night had the crucial evidence they needed: the cutlery, four drinking glasses and a napkin, according to two agents’ testimony.The agents took the stand in Boston court, where the 35-year-old suspect, accompanied by his fiancée, listened as his lawyers worked to try to get the DNA evidence tossed, grilling the witnesses for hours about how they gathered it, according to the Boston Globe.The genetic material allegedly links Nilo — a lawyer who now lives in Weehawken — to the rapes of eight women in Charleston, Mass., and the North End of Boston in 2007 and 2008.The cases had been cold until 2022, when investigators were able to take DNA from one of the victim’s rape kits and run it through popular commercial DNA websites to find possible relatives of the suspect.Several of Nilo’s relatives were identified, and they agreed to have their DNA tested, narrowing the target down to Nilo.The feds then launched their DNA collection after Nilo had been at the Oscar Wilde bar in Gotham on April 6, 2023, and he was arrested a few months later.Nilo’s lawyers claimed in court Monday that the feds illegally collected the DNA without a warrant and also violated his privacy rights, since he was at a private work function at the time.The suspect had been hanging out in a special section of the bar called the “temptation room” and featuring a marble fireplace and “the maximalist furnishings as is only true of the Victorian Era,” according to its website.“I’ll call it stealing, you’ll call it abandoned,” defense lawyer Rosemary Scapicchio said of the collected DNA as she questioned one of the FBI special agents.Pro...