He Said, They Said

The question of why has fatally snagged two trials in Philadelphia; it has protected — all but insulated — Jeffrey Marsalis from virtually every one of the dozens of charges he’s faced; it has torpedoed the stories of 10 women. And yet, in the case that seems destined to finally undo him completely, it is a question suddenly, conspicuously, absent.

Once again, according to the allegations in court documents, it begins at a bar — this time Whiskey Jacques’, in Ketchum, Idaho. It is late 2005, just 10 days before Marsalis’s first criminal trial in Philadelphia is set to begin; his father has posted his bond, and Marsalis is staying at his mother’s condominium. He’s gotten a job as a security guard at the Sun Valley ski resort, and sitting beside him now is a co-worker, 21-year-old K. He tells her he’s a paramedic. K., wishing to be up-front, informs Marsalis outright that she’s not looking for a boyfriend, that she’s actually gay. He continues ordering drinks; so far, she’s had two beers. He orders her a kamikaze. She turns it up to drink — in the bottom, she notices an undissolved granular substance that looks like sugar but tastes bitter. She goes to the bathroom, comes back to a third beer he has waiting for her. Her memory begins fracturing.

And like all the others, she wakes in his bed in confusion. Except this time, the woman does something different. Later that day, she goes to the police.

Her blood is drawn for date-rape drugs; it is negative, which is not unexpected, given the hours that have passed. The rape kit, however, allegedly connects him to her. There are, what’s more, witnesses from a van-style taxi who told authorities K. appeared to be extremely drunk, that Marsalis essentially carried her out of the van, apologizing, implying she was his girlfriend or wife.

Marsalis, for the first time, agrees to talk to authorities, who are still unaware of the charges he’s facing here. He denies having had intercourse with K.

“If I was, you know, wanted to have sex with, you know, she is more of a manly type of a woman, for one,” he allegedly tells authorities. “I knew she was a lesbian that liked other women, so if I was going to have sex with somebody, wouldn’t I have picked someone who is some drop-dead gorgeous woman? You think?”

He is arrested and charged with drugging and raping K. (His arrest would prove inadmissible in Marsalis’s cases here.) The Idaho trial is expected to begin soon, once he is sentenced in Philadelphia.

Which is to say that should K. be telling the truth, and should a jury believe her, one woman will finally succeed in doing what some 30 others did not. She will have convinced herself, immediately and independent of the influence of anyone else, that the position she awoke to that morning was not of her choosing or consent. She will have convinced herself that she bore no guilt in the matter and had been horribly violated. And she will have convinced herself that the person sleeping beside her, the good-looking, safe-looking man she barely knew, the kindly paramedic from a few hours earlier, was for her at that moment as he lay there one thing and one thing only: the rapist she could not avoid confronting.


*Names of alleged victims have been changed.

Email: dlee@phillymag.com