Marsalis convicted of Idaho rape
He has two convictions in Phila. from 2007. He told women he was an astronaut or doctor.
BOISE, Idaho - Jeffrey J. Marsalis, already convicted of sexual assault in Philadelphia, was found guilty yesterday of felony rape.
The jury deliberated for two hours before convicting him of sexually assaulting a woman at his condominium near the Sun Valley ski resort in 2005.
Marsalis, 35, was extradited to Idaho last fall from Pennsylvania, where he is serving a 21-year sentence for his 2007 Philadelphia convictions. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison under Idaho law.
Jurors in the Idaho case were not told of his previous convictions and past allegations of rape.
The response of his victim was immediate. "Yes," the woman cried, nearly jumping out of her seat in the courtroom gallery.
"Jeffrey Marsalis' reign of terror is over in Idaho and Philadelphia," Blaine County Prosecutor Jim Thomas said after the ruling. "Date rape is probably the most difficult case that you can have going in, but the victim in this case was extremely willing to come forward and seek justice."
In Philadelphia, Marsalis was portrayed as a smooth talker who met women on the online dating site Match.com, telling them he was an astronaut, doctor or spy, and then slipping something into their drinks to incapacitate them. A Philadelphia jury convicted him of two counts of sexual assault but acquitted him of eight counts of rape.
His Idaho victim told the jury that she met Marsalis shortly after moving to Sun Valley. He was a security guard at the resort; she was a new employee who had moved to the region for work and to be closer to her younger sister.
At the time, she was 21 and Marsalis was the only person in town she knew who was old enough to go to bars. On Oct. 9, 2005, they went together to a bar.
Marsalis bought her some beer throughout the night. He also bought her a shot called a "Kamikaze," she testified. But instead of tasting sweet, as she expected, the shot was salty and bitter, and had a granular substance at the bottom.
The woman became very intoxicated, and later came to suspect that she had been drugged, though blood and urine tests taken about 24 hours later showed no sign of the usual date-rape drugs. She awoke the next day in Marsalis' condominium, violently ill and with her clothing on in a different manner than she had dressed the night before.
She went home, vomiting for much of the rest of the day. Then she went to police. Semen found in her body was shown to be a DNA match with Marsalis.
Fifth District Judge Daniel Hurlbutt Jr. ordered Marsalis to undergo a psychosexual investigation before sentencing.