Impostor's rape trial divides - and rivets

He was the counterfeit doctor, astronaut, CIA agent. But was he also the "Chemical Casanova"?

That's what one woman dubbed Jeffrey Marsalis during a call to a Philadelphia talk-radio show on WNJC-AM (1360).

Marsalis is accused of drugging and raping seven women he met through an online dating site from 2003 to 2005. His Philadelphia trial has drawn much attention because of the bizarre details that have emerged about his fraudulent life and his claims to all manner of exotic employment as lures for female attention.

Representatives from Oprah Winfrey's production company, People magazine, and Inside Edition have expressed interest in the trial, which is to resume Tuesday.

It would probably be featured on Court TV if not for Pennsylvania's prohibition on cameras in the courtroom.

What would-be viewers are missing is a parade of absurd and sometimes comical evidence of Marsalis' bogus occupations juxtaposed with emotionally wrenching testimony from the women who allege he raped them.

As disturbing as the rape allegations are, there is controversy about the behavior of the women, all seemingly bright young professionals who didn't hesitate to buy his most outlandish tales. Why was it they never quickly reported the rapes to police and sometimes met with him again after an alleged assault?

On WNJC, dozens of callers have weighed in on the case, and their opinions have split along gender lines, station owner John Forsythe said.

"This is a real polarizing trial for men and women," he said. "We can't find a guy to call in that doesn't think this guy should be acquitted. We can't find a woman to call in who doesn't think this guy should hang."

Some of the men believed that Marsalis, 34, had the women swooning with his tall tales, and that they willingly had sex with him. Many of the female callers were convinced that he is a predator, Forsythe said.

What's for certain is that he was an impostor.

History is filled with the type. In recent times, there was Frank Abagnale, who posed as a Pan-Am pilot, a pediatrician, and a lawyer in the Louisiana Attorney General's Office. His exploits took center stage in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can.

But with the growing online world, said Temple University psychologist Frank Farley, "we are probably going to see more of this thing."

Farley noted that increasingly people are creating exaggerated or fictitious online personas - as Marsalis did in his Match.com profile. "I could see people carrying those personas offline," Farley said.

Indeed, that's what Marsalis did. Part of his trial plays like a Cad's How-To Guide for Picking Up Chicks.

He took a photo of himself in a spacesuit during a tourist visit at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and posted it in his dating profile on Match.com.

He flashed a "CIA" badge to his one-time fiancee, but he showed it to her from a distance, saying she couldn't look up close for security reasons.

He had a pager that, when called, would announce "Dr. Marsalis!"

He walked around in hospital scrubs and wore a forged doctor ID.

Disturbingly, he used the ID to roam Hahnemann University Hospital. A Hahnemann spokeswoman said the hospital would take steps to improve security.

Even wilder than the props were the stories he told about his phony jobs.

He said he had a helicopter on standby in case he was needed at the White House, where he was a close adviser to President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to testimony from his former fiancee, who is not one of the seven accusers.

He once called her and claimed to be in Afghanistan hunting terrorists in caves, she said. He said he was a CIA killer, but decided to train to be an astronaut so he would have something to do "after he was done killing people."

One thing she said she witnessed was Marsalis talking like Elvis to his 9mm Beretta pistol, which he named Priscilla.

His accusers were also subjected to some of his fables. They were or later became lawyers and other well-regarded professionals, so how could they fall for his ruse?

Farley, a former president of the American Psychological Association, said it could be difficult to detect a lie, especially from a well-practiced deceiver.

And why the fantasy life?

It's hard to know, Farley said, but maybe it was Marsalis' way of feeling important. "If you make a videotape of a week in your life, you wouldn't win any Oscars," Farley said.

Not much is clear about Marsalis' background.

His father, Forrest Marsalis, is well-off enough to pay the hefty legal fees of his son's two attorneys. His father has sat behind his son the entire trial.

He went to Kentridge High School in Kent, Wash., according to a female classmate.

"Me and my friends always called him 'Orange' because he used the tanning beds like there was no tomorrow. He always acted pretty slick, like he was too cool to be there," said the classmate, who did not want to be identified.

Before landing in Philadelphia, Marsalis had addresses in Florida and Arizona.

While in Philadelphia, he graduated from Drexel University with a degree in emergency medical services. He lived at the Metropolitan apartments near Hahnemann and later at the Left Bank apartments in University City.

According to testimony, his father paid off his credit-card bills, and he got two girlfriends - who for a time were his simultaneous girlfriends while he also met women online - to pay for expenses and vacations.

During the period that he is accused of drugging and raping his dates, he had no job - except to make believe he had many important jobs.

Now his only job is to make a Common Pleas Court jury believe that his accusers are just angry that he made them look foolish with his lies.

If he accomplishes that, he still faces a drugging and rape case in Idaho.