Date-rape defendant yearning for fame?

As the jury in the Jeffrey Marsalis rape case continued to deliberate yesterday, new details emerged about the fake doctor's background and his desire to become famous.

Marsalis, who is being held at Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility, recently has told people that he hopes to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show and run for president, according to a non-lawyer source involved in the case.

His mother, Darlene Jevne, 67, founded a private school, St. Christopher's Academy, in Kent, Wash., in 1982 for children with emotional problems and learning disabilities. But the Seattle-area school was plunged into turmoil in 1995 when an IRS audit indicated that Jevne spent money from the nonprofit school to buy and maintain condos and a ranch she owned in Idaho, and pay personal property-tax bills and a legal bill for her divorce from Marsalis' father.

Jevne repaid $343,000, then purchased the school and turned it into a for-profit venture. She continues to operate the school as well as a summer ranch and outdoor academy under her name in Sun Valley, Idaho.

In October 2005, Marsalis was arrested in Sun Valley. Police say he drugged and raped a woman inside a condominium he had moved to after being arrested in Philadelphia on rape charges and posting bail.

The Sun Valley case is pending.

In Philadelphia, he awaits the verdict of the jury, which on its second day of deliberations appeared to be divided or confused about whether to find Marsalis, 34, guilty of drugging and raping seven women from 2003 to 2005.

The jury again asked Common Pleas Court Judge Steven Geroff for the legal definition of rape, but this time asked specifically about rape by substantial impairment, as in drugging, and sexual assault, and later about rape of an unconscious complainant.

In the first note to the judge, the foreman wrote that "some jurors don't have a clear understanding," which seemed to indicate a split or that some jurors were holding out for a position the majority does not agree with.

In the second note, the jury asked the judge to explain the process of deliberation. As they left the courtroom, the eight women and four men of the jury did not appear upset.

It will resume deliberations on Monday.

During the trial, some of the accusers said Marsalis told them that his mother was a prominent politician who started a private school. Jevne, which is Marsalis' middle name, was not a politician, according to available records and news accounts. But the school was for real.

After it got going, St. Christopher's quickly became the Seattle region's largest specializing in teaching children with attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia, building an enrollment of 135 in grades K-12.

The founding of the academy came at an especially difficult time for the Marsalis family because Jevne and her husband, Forrest Marsalis, a former military and commercial pilot, were in the midst of what court records indicate was an acrimonious divorce.

In 1995, Jevne's school and world almost collapsed when newspapers reported that an IRS audit had determined that Jevne used about $343,000 to maintain and buy ski-resort condos and maintain her 400-acre ranch near Sun Valley.

Jevne was not charged criminally as a result of the audit and maintained that the diversion of money was the result of failing to separate her personal and business expenses in the founding of the school.

Though "ill-advised," the money was spent to benefit the school and the ranch was for a summer outdoors program, she said at the time.

Jevne was contacted yesterday for comment and later, through Kathleen Martin, one of Marsalis' defense lawyers, declined.