NARRATOR: The sky is the limit for Jessika Rovell.
What I was looking for was someone like me,
who was working towards an amazing future.
NARRATOR: She shoots for the moon and finds a superstar.
He was charming. He was attentive.
NARRATOR: But when his dark side brings her back
to earth...
He was really a master of manipulation.
I didn't know what was real and what wasn't.
...she wishes he'd never set foot on the planet.
I was in a state of terror and fear that I
didn't ever think I was going to get away from him.
It was sort of like they were getting prepped for surgery.
That's when he would remove them from
the bar and take them back to his apartment.
My instincts were telling me when I
woke up that morning that everything was wrong.
JOE: It was dozens and dozens of people
who had the same experience.
JESSIKA: Someone was going to get hurt.
It was just one big exercise in sexual violence.
[theme music playing]
[music ends]
I started college as a musical theater major, and I went on to
be a history major, and I focused
on medieval and Renaissance
British History, which, you know, was not the most
practical thing that I could have majored in.
At a certain point,
I needed to get more practical about what
I was going to be doing in my life.
So I decided I was going to go to law school.
NARRATOR: 24-year-old Jessika Rovell
grew up in New Jersey and is in her second year
of law school at Rutgers University
when the unthinkable happens nearby.
Okay, it sounds like we have some breaking
news to tell you about out of New York.
There's a...
MAN: Fire burning in the World Trade Center right now.
We're just hearing about that right now.
JESSIKA: Afterwards, I wanted to do something to help.
Eventually, it kind of came to me that the skills of being
a lawyer translated
into being able to work in the intelligence
community or service in the Navy.
It was a place that I really could
contribute and do something towards helping after 9/11.
NARRATOR: With a vision for her future
now crystallizing, Jessika sinks herself into her studies,
leaving little time for leisure.
JESSIKA: Everything was just going really well.
But going into the winter of that year,
I realized that the thing that was missing in my life was
a guy.
What I was looking for was someone like me,
who was working towards an amazing future.
I complained to one of my girlfriends that there
just weren't any good men in the world anymore.
And she laughed and said, "Oh, man, do I have the guy
"for you.
"He's in the Navy.
"He is a doctor.
"He's really just intelligent and funny,
and I think you would get along well with him."
So I was all like, yeah, bring that on.
Let's see where that could go.
NARRATOR: It's early December when Jessika heads down
to the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia
for a blind date with Dr. Jeffrey Marsalis.
I got there first, and when he walked in,
I was honestly kind of underwhelmed.
He walked in in a black T-shirt
and black jeans, and he was really pale,
and he had this kind of weird flat top haircut.
Not too flattering, I mean, not --
not unattractive, but not attractive either.
It definitely wasn't love at first sight.
Jeff told me that he grew up on the West Coast.
His mother ran a school.
His father was a pilot.
He talked a lot about how he was a flight surgeon
in the Navy and his work as an emergency room doctor.
There was something I found attractive about him.
He was funny, but he was also arrogant.
Looking back with -- with hindsight,
I think that I made excuses for that.
So after the date, Jeff walked me to the train station,
and there was no goodnight kiss,
which was fine with me at the time.
You know, I -- I wasn't sure even that I liked him.
NARRATOR: And Jessika isn't sure whether
Jeffrey likes her either until
she gets a call from him the following week
asking for a second date. -JESSIKA: I said, yeah, why not?
I didn't have a bad time with him.
So why not go out with him again?
When we went out for the second time,
we actually decided that we were going to get Chinese food
and watch a movie at my house.
[knocking noises]
So he came to my door, and before he even walked through,
he said, "Hey, chunky butt, how are you doing?"
And I just kind of looked at him, and I was like,
what woman wants to be called chunky butt?
So I actually said to him, "Hey,
"could you please not call me that?
Because it's just not cool."
I was a beauty queen, like, I spent time in
a swimsuit being judged on my appearance.
Being called chunky butt,
like, at that time, it was just so not true.
NARRATOR: It's an awkward beginning to their evening,
but the tension eases up.
We set up the movie and started eating,
opened a bottle of wine, and, you know, just talked.
We were having a pretty good time,
and we got through most of the bottle of wine,
and suddenly, I have no idea what happened.
I do remember being in my kitchen...
and him kissing me.
And that was the last thing
that I remembered until the next morning.
All of a sudden, he's in my bed, and I'm thinking,
oh, my God, what did I do?
I totally didn't mean to do that.
You know, that wasn't on my agenda
for -- for the evening.
There should have been no reason for me
to black out after
let's say half a bottle of wine.
Even if I had drunk the entire bottle of wine,
blacking out just isn't something that happens to me.
So kind of...
waking up not remembering anything was strange.
That blackout period, that time she can't account for, to wake
up and not know why or how somebody is still there --
that unknown is very scary.
NARRATOR: Jessika doubts herself to the point where she wonders
if Jeffrey will have a bad opinion of her
for sleeping with him so quickly.
JESSIKA: But when he woke up, he told me
what a great time he had last night.
So I just said to myself, you know what, like,
I might as well at this point go out with him again.
You know, since we've -- we've already gone there,
and that morning, we went for breakfast,
and at some point, it turned into a relationship
that at first was -- was really nice.
He was charming.
He was attentive.
You know, we talked a lot about having
a future together and what that may look like.
I remember we went to dinner
one night in an Italian restaurant.
Um, and this restaurant had kind of
an alcove where there was a table for two.
No one had ever done something like that for me before.
It was very romantic.
So at some point, the relationship, it just worked.
You know, we were happy. I was happy with him.
I was happy with where things were going.
He was a good guy, and I was looking forward, you know,
into what a future might look like with him.
NARRATOR: The relationship becomes serious.
But the demands of Jeffrey's job
means their time together is often disrupted.
He would frequently call me and say, "All right, sorry,
I got to go off and save lives,"
and then he would come home and tell me that, you know,
he had saved a baby or a pregnant woman or,
you know, something that would really just
pull at the heart strings.
You know, that made me feel good that
I was dating this guy who really helped people.
NARRATOR: It's been barely two months since they met,
and Jeff goes radio silent for periods of time.
Jessika becomes suspicious until one night when
he tells her he has an important confession to make.
He said that he was a non-official cover agent
for the CIA.
He said that he had gotten special permission to tell me,
because I was someone who was special in his life who he felt
like he was going to have a future with and that I needed
to know and understand who he was and all of him.
It's not that he wasn't an ER doctor,
and he wasn't a flight surgeon.
He was, but they were both a cover for what he did for
the CIA.
NARRATOR: It's a little over a year since 9/11,
and fighting terror is on everyone's mind.
JESSIKA: That was a major milestone in our relationship.
You know, it was clear that he felt like I was someone
he wanted to be a part of his life.
In fairness, like, that --
that was flattering to me, that he would
get special permission to share something so important
you know, with me.
There were periods of time when he would go away,
that I wouldn't know where he was or where he was going.
And during that time, he always said
that it was because he was off fighting terrorists.
NARRATOR: It will be years before Jessika discovers
the unfathomable truth
about what Jeff is really doing while undercover.
Marsalis was audacious. He was bold.
He felt that he was never gonna get caught.
It was just a very Jekyll and Hyde existence.
I took a sip of the drink that was mine,
and... I don't remember anything
until I woke up the next morning.
I...was in his bed.
I had no clothes on.
He was next to me.
I was very confused.
NARRATOR: Jessika Rovell is getting deeper into
a relationship with Dr. Jeffrey Marsalis,
hoping that one day, they'd get married
and become a power couple.
JESSIKA: He was helping people,
and that was really attractive to me.
We talked a lot about a future together
and what that would look like with me as a lawyer,
him as the doctor.
NARRATOR: In January 2002,
Jessika and Jeff go to Bermuda for their first
weekend getaway.
When we first landed,
it was freezing, and there wasn't anyone around.
We got to the hotel.
I think that it was under construction,
because it was an off season.
It was not the most romantic environment for a trip.
NARRATOR: Jeff suggests they rent a scooter.
They ride out to a remote beach,
but the journey is far from idyllic.
JESSIKA: I started getting scared,
because it was dark and we were the only people there.
[thunder crashes]
I told him that I wanted to go back, and he told me no.
And he just kept driving.
He was swerving the scooter in a way
that felt dangerous to me.
He was laughing in a way that just felt incredibly unhinged.
And I remember just crying and telling him I wanted to go back,
and he was like, "What, do you think I'm gonna kill you?"
I'm afraid. I want to go back.
You're not wanting to take me back,
and that's just scary.
This could be a test on Jeffrey's behalf of
scaring her,
but then showing her that nothing's going to happen,
and he is her protector.
NARRATOR: Finally, Jeff climbs on the scooter,
and they ride back to the hotel.
By the time we got back to the hotel,
I was just a total mess.
I didn't want to talk to him.
I didn't want to be there.
And it was one of those situations in which
he started telling me,
"You're going to have to learn to have my sort of sense
of humor."
NARRATOR: Jeff's strange mood continues, and he seems intent
on baiting Jessika.
He proceeded to tell me about a time
that he and his friend, who was also in the CIA,
saw two guys coming out of the club, and they thought,
you know, let's pick a fight.
So they picked a fight with the guys.
NARRATOR: And this is when Jeff drops a bombshell.
JESSIKA: He ended up killing one of them,
and his friend put the other one in the hospital.
He told me that when the police came,
he basically showed them his CIA card,
and he got right out of it.
That should have been a moment
that was just a huge red flag.
And I know it sounds
probably ridiculous, but he had a way of normalizing
things that were just ridiculous and horrible.
This is an example of something that
I've done with one of my friends.
And if you can't appreciate that,
then we're not going to be able to have a future together.
You know, he had this training, and sometimes instinct just
took him somewhere that,
you know, normal people don't go.
I think that I rationalized that it was part
of what he did as part of the CIA.
NARRATOR: On another trip,
Jeff's vanity is on full display.
JESSIKA: We went on this Disney cruise, and then
we spent a couple of days in Florida.
Jeff was obsessed with taking
pictures of him in different settings
and different poses and different states of dress.
He got, like, really dramatic with the way that he posed,
like he would, you know, kind of put his head back and smile.
And I just found it really strange that he was
so obsessed with having these pictures of himself.
The one thing that he did
express interest in was becoming an astronaut.
We then go to Cape Canaveral, where he decides that
he needs a picture of himself in an astronaut costume.
I remember asking him, like, well, why do you need to
do that if you're going to go to astronaut training?
He was like, "Well, you know,
it's just a fun thing to do."
After we were done with the photo session,
he was very excited about the picture.
He actually gave it to me as a gift.
NARRATOR: On their first Valentine's Day in 2002,
Jeff tells Jessika he wants to show her where he works.
Jeff said he had something really special planned for us,
and we went from his apartment to the hospital.
He seemed to have access to everywhere.
He then proceeded to take me to the cadaver lab.
He opened drawers with dead people,
showed me different organs, and suddenly,
he ripped off the guy's arm,
[distant scream]
and then chased me around the cadaver lab with it
while he laughed maniacally.
[distant laughter]
JESSIKA: I was terrified, and he told me it wasn't a big deal.
He asked me why I thought it was such a big deal.
NARRATOR: When they return to his apartment,
Jessika is furious.
I remember grabbing my bag and just telling him
I was leaving, and he blocked the door.
He wouldn't allow me to leave.
It was just one of the first times I saw behind the mask.
NARRATOR: Despite this deeply disturbing incident,
Jessika and Jeff continue to see each other.
And in the summer of 2003,
Jessika graduates from Rutgers Law School.
JESSIKA: I took time and did some research
into where I might want to be.
I ultimately ended up enlisting in
the Navy as an intelligence specialist.
NARRATOR: Over the next year, Jessika launches her new career
as Jeff continues to serve
the Navy and CIA in his undercover capacity.
JESSIKA: He would be going off on what he called missions.
He's playing me recordings of what he says
are him interrogating terrorists in Afghanistan,
and all I hear is screaming.
[man screaming]
He played those things for me pretty regularly.
I was 24, 25,
and at that age, I didn't have a lot of experience with
the world -- it seemed like, oh my gosh, you know, I --
I knew what the CIA was from movies and TV, and what he was
telling me made sense.
NARRATOR: Jessika thinks the pressure of Jeff's work
or some unknown stressor is making him
increasingly controlling.
JESSIKA: He started isolating me from my friends, getting me to
a point where I needed to rely on him for comfort,
for friendship, because I just didn't have anyone else.
Either I stopped talking to them or my life was just
getting too crazy with him, and they stopped talking to me.
I came to think that this was just
my life and something that I needed to deal with,
because if I didn't, people were gonna get hurt.
He talked about killing people,
so there was definitely a part of me that was
quite sure he was capable of doing that to me
or people I love.
NARRATOR: Jessika becomes scared in her relationship.
JESSIKA: I just started looking for coping mechanisms.
I would literally go to the gym and do
an aerobics class and then run 10 miles a night
so I had an excuse to not be near him.
I trained for a marathon so that I wouldn't be
able to see him on weekends, because I was just afraid.
NARRATOR: After more than two years of dating,
Jeff pops the question in April 2004.
JESSIKA: You would think, like, getting engaged is supposed
to be this, like, happy, exciting thing,
but by the time that, you know, he brought it up,
I was already in --
in that state of terror and fear that I didn't ever
think I was going to get away from him.
So I said okay, and that was -- that was it.
NARRATOR: But unbeknownst to Jessika,
Jeff is leading a sinister double life.
JESSIKA: I totally lost my twenties to this horrible,
horrible person, and they're not something
that I can ever get back.
NARRATOR: After their engagement,
Dr. Jeffrey Marsalis asks fiance Jessika Rovell
to accompany him on a trip out west.
His dad was his idol.
So it was just a really big deal that I was
going out to Park City, Utah, to meet his dad.
We went skiing, we went shopping -- from what I recall,
we did a lot of nice things on that trip.
Seeing the normalcy of the family really made me
question, like, where -- where did he come from?
Because they were just so kind and welcoming.
NARRATOR: But it remains a stark contrast
to Jeff's disturbing and frenetic energy.
JESSIKA: He busts open the door
and just starts screaming at me.
He's got a shotgun, and he's pointing it at me,
and he's just screaming,
"I'm gonna kill you."
When he was done screaming,
he took a pause, and he looked at me and said,
"Just kidding," and turned around
and pranced out of the bathroom.
I think at that point, I was just so broken down,
so I let it go as one of those things
that I -- I needed to deal with in my life.
[exhales heavily]
NARRATOR: Back in Philadelphia,
Jeff's abusive behavior continues.
JESSIKA: I remember being on the phone with him,
and I didn't care if he killed me.
I didn't care if I lived, like,
I just couldn't deal with him anymore,
and something just clicked in my head,
and I said, "I can't do this anymore."
And I hung up on him, and I immediately called 911
and said I -- I needed help.
I -- I just, I -- I needed help.
And as they were sending police over, I called my mom,
and I told her everything that was happening, and, you know,
it was kind of one of those, like,
why didn't you tell us moments.
NARRATOR: The police arrive and escort Jessika safely downtown
to file a temporary restraining order.
JESSIKA: It could have gone the wrong way
any number of times -- handling it
the way I did actually may have saved my life.
NARRATOR: Soon, Jessika will learn that
she is not alone, because Jeff's undercover work
for the Navy and CIA has been a cover for something
completely different.
JOANN: It was, uh, March of 2004
when I began communicating with Jeffrey Marsalis.
It was a time in my life where
I was interested in getting married and having children.
NARRATOR: Joanne Buttaro Cooper is single with a successful career in
marketing when she decides to give online dating a try.
Jeffrey Marsalis's profile looked like he was a good catch.
He had pictures of him in
his medical scrubs, with an astronaut's uniform.
He had a lot of other pictures.
Jeffrey said that he wanted to meet me out for a date,
and I said yes.
I lived in New Jersey.
So he planned for me to come into Philly.
NARRATOR: They go to a popular Irish bar in Philadelphia,
the Tir Na Nog,
where he describes his thriving career
as an astronaut.
I was excited, because he actually
looked like his profile.
As we were chatting and sat down at the bar,
he started describing his residency program
and the NASA program, and I was interested.
He was interesting.
He lived in a high rise apartment building in the city
that was also just a few blocks from where we were.
So we went down to his apartment.
He asked if I wanted a drink.
I said no to an alcoholic drink.
So I just wanted something non-alcoholic,
whether it be water or soda.
[fizzing noise]
I sat down on the couch, we started to talk a little bit.
He did kiss me.
I then took a sip of the drink that was mine.
And... I don't remember
anything until I woke up the next morning.
I was in his bed.
I had no clothes on.
He was next to me.
My head hurt.
Every part of me hurt.
I was violently ill.
I knew I had sex with him.
There was no question, but I didn't know why, because I had
no intentions of staying over in his apartment,
of having sex with him.
I blacked out for probably about eight hours.
There's nothing in between my taking the sip of
the drink and then waking up the next morning.
I chalked it up to maybe not having enough to eat on Friday.
NARRATOR: When Marsalis wakes up,
his reaction seems to indicate nothing is amiss.
JOANN: He started chatting with me like everything was normal,
like what we did was normal, and I didn't
say anything to him, that I didn't remember anything.
I just kept it all to myself.
So I had assumed that I, you know, wanted it,
and I --
I can't really explain it.
I wish I could, but I can't explain it to myself.
I just figured I would just forget about it.
I was just gonna put it away and move on.
NARRATOR: Over a year after Joann dated Jeff,
Jessika gets an unexpected call from the manager
of his apartment building.
She called me and said, "Hey,
I think you need to call the Philadelphia SVU."
And I was like, "Oh, okay. Why? What happened?"
And she said, "Just -- just call them."
NARRATOR: Jessika immediately reaches out.
JESSIKA: You know, I remember them asking me questions
and...
some of them were about him dating
other people, and I had no idea.
NARRATOR: The special agents tell Jessika that Jeff
is accused of raping
at least two women while she has been engaged to him.
JESSIKA: You know, at first, I don't know if I was in denial.
I understood what my experience was,
but as they were asking me questions about
what sounded like the experiences of other women...
like, it just, um...
gosh, I don't even know how to explain it.
There came a point when I was talking with
the detectives that, like, kind of a light bulb went off,
and it -- it all kind of came together.
The last couple years of my life
were basically one big date rape.
I came to understand that it wasn't
just me, and that was just so scary.
JEFFREY: I have to almost laugh at that.
Let's get over the profile,
and eventually we're gonna see me as the person
who I am inside --
the caring, the loving,
the nurturing, the easygoing, the great guy.
NARRATOR: In March 2005, Philadelphia's
Special Victims Unit
launches an investigation into Jeffrey Marsalis.
The first victim that came in said
she had met him on a dating website.
They went out on a date.
She said they had a couple of drinks,
went back to his apartment,
she woke up with him on top of her.
And they wake up the next morning,
he kind of sweet talks her
into like, "Hey, we were both drinking.
"We had a good time.
We should go out again," and she did.
But after he stopped talking to her,
it was really bothering her, and she came in and made
a report.
NARRATOR: By this time, it's too late to conduct
a rape kit or a drug test on the victim.
But police obtain a search warrant for Jeff's apartment.
THOMAS: The first time, he's not home.
So we go to the manager of the apartment complex.
NARRATOR: When the building manager reads the search warrant,
she is visibly distressed.
You could see the blood just, like, go like this,
just go right off her face, and we looked at her,
and she says, "He did the same thing to me."
We went to search his apartment.
Screensaver had CIA on it.
He had a bulletproof vest there.
He had a doctor's coat with his name on it.
NARRATOR: They also find what appeared to be classified CIA documents,
all of which are later determined to be forgeries.
Mr. Marsalis was very good and very
committed to pretending to be a doctor.
And he convinced other doctors, other patients,
other people in the hospital that he was Dr. Marsalis.
He came from tremendous privilege.
He was given the opportunity to
go to a number of great schools.
But by the time we encountered him,
he was a nursing school dropout who went around lying
about who he was and victimizing women.
What we found on his computer was a list that he kept.
He called it The Yearly Calendar of Woman,
and that contained
the first names of a number of women he had
had sexual intercourse with.
They found a list of about 50 women.
JOE: We were shocked to learn that it wasn't two people
who were raped by Marsalis or three or four,
but it was many, many women who were all
victimized in the same way.
NARRATOR: One of the names on the list is Joann Buttaro Cooper.
JOANN: Someone who worked for the assistant district attorney
starts to ask me if I knew Jeffrey Marsalis.
She explained to me why they were calling me
and what he was being investigated for.
And, at that moment, I had a flood of emotions.
Everything that didn't make sense to me
back in March of '04 came at me hard.
I hung up the phone, and I ran
into the bathroom, and I had an emotional breakdown.
NARRATOR: Jeffrey Marsalis is arrested in April 2005
but makes bail and flees to his mother's condo in Utah.
Jessika, Joann, and a group of other victims work with police
to prepare for trial.
JOHN: We came up with a plan between
the Philadelphia police detectives and the FBI agents.
Some of the victims were local, some were in
the surrounding counties,
some were in other states, and we started to slowly interview
all of those individuals.
NARRATOR: It becomes evident that none of the witnesses
reported the rapes to police
in a timely enough manner to conduct drug tests
or a rape kit.
JOHN: The investigation never identified
the actual drug that he used.
I think the strength of this case was the volume of
victims who
did not know one another, but yet their stories all were
very similar.
NARRATOR: The prosecutor chooses the three cases
he will present at the trial.
JESSIKA: I was a witness.
They called me the glue that brought everything together.
Because he was doing all of this while we were together,
I was the baseline, the patient zero.
He started with me and then
just continued with these other women.
We're all professional, successful women, just confident,
and his mother is a strong woman,
an educated woman, a confident woman, a successful woman.
And it always struck me as bizarre that he chose
his victims almost in the image of his mother.
The victims were very brave for being
willing to share their story with a jury.
Marsalis's defense attorney told the jury
that the victims were lying and that this was
all some kind of misunderstanding and that
Marsalis was the real victim.
Marsalis looked very smug and confident.
JOHN: Their strategy was he's a liar.
He's not a doctor, he's not the things that he said he was,
but he's not a rapist.
These were women who were looking for,
you know, prince charming,
and he's not that.
So they're upset, and they conspired together.
Because they had seen him again, and then they had
a consensual relationship, that presented a challenge to get
a successful prosecution.
NARRATOR: In a controversial ABC interview with Marsalis,
he reacts to their accusations
of him lying about his profession.
The truth is simple.
We had a great time,
had consensual sex numerous times with one another.
If I'm such a god-awful person,
why do you keep on hanging out with me for?
He's extremely excited by it,
but he's excited by it, because he is gaining control over
somebody who he shouldn't be able to get control over.
They shouldn't be easy targets.
And so therefore, by going after them, he has gained
control, and that level of control thrills him,
excites him, and just pushes him to do it
again and again and again.
NARRATOR: At the trial, the defense lawyers
adopt a familiar tactic -- victim blaming.
JESSIKA: What were you wearing?
Why did you sleep with him?
You know, why did you sleep with him again?
Why did you go out with him again?
So it becomes more a focus on the victim's morality,
if you will, than it does about the individual,
the accused's culpability in the situation.
In Pennsylvania at the time,
there was no mechanism for there to be
psychological testimony as to
why rape victims act the way they do
in the wake of a sexual assault.
And that was problematic, because with the jury,
the actions that a person takes afterwards are not always
what you would expect.
NARRATOR: While the jury takes five days to deliberate, the victims hold
their collective breath.
The result came in, and it was an acquittal.
Let me make something very, very clear to you.
I have never drugged anybody.
I have never raped anybody.
I've never forced myself on anybody, ever.
JOE: It was difficult to hear the verdict of
not guilty with respect to those three women.
What Marsalis didn't expect, what caused the smug look
on his face to disappear, was when he was arrested in
the courtroom for what was going to be a second trial
with seven different women presenting their story
to a jury.
NARRATOR: After his acquittal and re-arrest,
victims continue to come forward,
and Jeff becomes the focus of a new investigation,
but hidden from the proceedings,
just two weeks prior to the Philadelphia trial,
Jeff is living in Sun Valley, Idaho.
His family had some affiliation with this resort,
and he got a job there as a security guard.
NARRATOR: It's there in October 2005 that Marsalis
and a female co-worker share a few drinks after work.
When she's suddenly unable to walk,
he puts her in a taxi and takes her back to his place to
repeat a familiar scenario.
But this time, Jeff's tried and true technique backfires.
She was a lesbian, and she knew that
she was not gonna be sleeping with a man.
So she knew that she woke up, and it wasn't right.
She was not confused about what happened to her.
And so because she went to the police right away,
the detectives were able to get a rape kit to get physical
evidence proving what had happened.
They were able to talk to the bartender,
who talked about the drinks that were served.
They were able to find witnesses who had seen
her being dragged out of a taxi cab by Marsalis.
This was exactly the kind of evidence that we did
not have in Pennsylvania, because the victim
came forward right away.
NARRATOR: Now, with another trial
pending in Idaho, Philadelphia law enforcement take
Jeffrey Marsalis to trial for the second time in May 2007.
The case focuses on seven women bringing
a total of 66 charges, including rape.
JOE: One of the women who lived in his building and a woman who
had met Marsalis on a date after coming in to Philadelphia
from New Jersey.
NARRATOR: That woman is Joann Buttaro Cooper.
I gave my testimony, and I got to stare him straight in
the face and point at him
and accuse him of the crimes he committed against me.
That felt very empowering.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
He saw me there, and his face dropped.
It felt really good to know that
someone could scare him a little bit still.
NARRATOR: After deliberating a week,
the jury finds Marsalis guilty on two counts of sexual assault
and impersonating a government official,
but without physical evidence, acquits him of all
other charges.
They found him guilty of sexually assaulting two women.
I was surprised that the jury did not see
the truth and that he wasn't convicted on all counts.
He's a felon now, and he will
always have to register as a sex offender.
NARRATOR: With Jeff finally behind bars,
Jessika begins the difficult task of rebuilding her life.
JESSIKA: With every moment that you are moving forward
and putting it further in your rearview,
I look at my own life, and there are some tough years.
It's not something that you ever forget.
Certainly it's -- it's always there.
It's possible to -- to get to a point
that it's not the sole influence in your life.
NARRATOR: Despite not being found guilty of rape,
Marsalis is given a new moniker in the press --
the Match.com Rapist.
It's not until April 2009 that the Idaho case goes to trial.
The jury heard that Marsalis denied having had any kind of
intercourse with the victim,
and yet a rape kit that was performed showed that
he was a liar.
JOANN: I felt like she was the strongest.
She did what all of us hadn't done.
NARRATOR: As Jeff enters the court for sentencing,
he notices Jessika sitting in the gallery.
JESSIKA: He thought he was being smug, and he was getting to me.
But at the end of the day, my being able to look back at
him and, you know, really just signal to him
what a dirt bag he is was satisfying
and an opportunity to just take my power back,
and I did.
After hearing all the evidence,
the jury found Marsalis guilty of rape.
NARRATOR: When it comes to sentencing, the judge is able
to take the dozens of cases from Pennsylvania into account.
The outcome of the third trial was
the most satisfying of all of them.
JUDGE: I will sentence you to a term
of life imprisonment in the Idaho State Penitentiary.
[distant crowd cheering]
NARRATOR: Jeffrey Marsalis is declared a sexually violent predator.
[Jessika, voice breaking] It was the moment in which I -- I knew.
I knew that I wasn't wrong.
I knew that it was not real.
And I'm glad I went to Idaho, because I don't know
whether I'd have gotten that closure otherwise.
I questioned myself instead of him, and I will never
do that again, and I will make sure
that I can speak out and tell women that
you should always believe yourself first.
NARRATOR: Joann starts a rape crisis counseling organization
and eventually, through a mutual friend,
reconnects with an old boyfriend from college.
JOANN: I've been married for 3.5 years.
I'm extremely happy in my job.
I work for a nonprofit, and I just continue to do
things that make me happy.
Without the bravery of all the survivors
in this case, he'd still be out there doing it.
Jeffrey Marsalis is, in fact, one of
the worst serial rapists in Pennsylvania's history.
NARRATOR: After the Marsalis case,
rape trials in Pennsylvania will never be the same.
JOE: When victim after victim shared the same story,
and Marsalis was still acquitted of rape,
the Pennsylvania legislature responded by changing the law,
which allowed expert testimony to come into
rape cases so that jurors could better understand
the psychology and behavior of rape victims.
JESSIKA: I want to let others know that this is not
going to define you for the rest of your lives.
This is a moment in time, and it sucks, like, it really,
truly sucks, but you get past it.
NARRATOR: Jessika goes on to become an intelligence officer
in the Navy and spends 20 years working for the FBI.
JESSIKA: I'm an investigator at Microsoft now.
There are so many good things that have gone on in
my life -- I'm married.
I have two amazing silly dogs, and I've
got relationships that are strong with my family
and my friends.
I talk with universities, with businesses,
with government agencies.
I want people to know you're not alone.
You're not alone.
And no matter what you think has been taken away from you,
you have the power to grab it back.