Dr. Eugene Sherry, a former Harvard-affiliated physician convicted of rape in 1981, was granted permission Monday to freely leave the United States and return to his homeland of New Zealand.

In what Sherry's lawyer Robert Gaynor called "a major victory," Judge Thomas Ragno spared Sherry from deportation, which would have prevented him from returning to this country without an official waiver."

Laws of Gravity

Sherry and two other former Harvard doctors served six-month prison sentences after a highly publicized trial in which they were charged with raping a Boston nurse in September 1980. Both Sherry and Dr. Arif Hussain were clinical fellows in anesthesiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where the nurse worked.

Sherry travelled to New Zealand before serving his sentence, and upon returning to the United States, had failed to obtain a proper visa, according to Gaynor. Because of this, after completing his sentence on Monday, Sherry was put in the custody of immigration officials under the charge of not being law-fully admitted into the country, precipitating the hearing to deport him, Gaynor said.

According to Gaynor, the withdrawal of Sherry's application for admission to this country means that Sherry is not considered to have officially entered the country. "He was merely paroled in to serve his sentence," Gaynor said.

Sherry will not be able to return to New Zealand and will also be able to come back to the United States. If deported, however, Sherry would not have been able to return to the United States without a waiver from the Attorney General, "which is highly unlikely," Gaynor said, "because the rape conviction involves moral turpitude."

Sherry, who told The Boston Globe Monday his prison term left him "humiliated and degraded," left for London last night and plans to return to New Zealand. Although his Massachusetts practicing license has been revoked. Sherry plans on eventually returning to this country, Gaynor said.

Gaynor added that he does not know whether Sherry plans to continue practicing medicine.