NORTH ATTLEBORO - A local man convicted in 1995 of raping a North Attleboro girl will stay imprisoned after a Fall River Superior Court jury found him sexually dangerous.

Paul Mello, 54, of North Attleboro and Dartmouth, will remain at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for one year to life, according to Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter.

The jury trial was May 21.

Mello was convicted in 1995 of raping a North Attleboro girl several times in North Attleboro and Taunton. The girl was 6 to 11 at the time of the incidents, which happened during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Miliote said.

Mello was charged in 1993. Mello was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in state prison, with two years to serve, Miliote said. He served two years before being released and placed on probation.

After he was released from prison, Mello moved to Dartmouth, where he violently raped a woman in 1999.

He was convicted of rape, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in 1999 and sentenced to serve six to seven years in state prison.

Mello was scheduled for release in 2006. However, the district attorney's office filed a sexually dangerous person petition against him, Miliote said.

A second local sex offender, Nathaniel Simmons, 40, of Taunton, also was deemed sexually dangerous by Superior Court Judge John Connor on May 22. Simmons will remain at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for one year to life.

Simmons was convicted of raping a woman in Taunton in 1994.

After being released from prison, and while still on probation, he was arrested for raping two other women at knifepoint in Taunton in February and April of 1998. He was eventually convicted of both rapes and was sentenced to serve an eight- to 10-year prison sentence.

Sutter's office filed a sexually dangerous person petition against Simmons prior to his scheduled release from prison in 2007.