Crush (Season 10, Episode 20)
Premise: An abused teenager who sent nude photos of herself is prosecuted for child pornography, and her harsh sentence leads SVU to a family court judge who profits from locking children up.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 20
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong)
- Guest stars
- Carly Schroeder as Kim Garnet, Alexander Nifong as Steve Walker, Ezra Miller as Ethan Morse, Swoosie Kurtz as Judge Hilda Marsden, Melinda McGraw as Samantha Copeland
- Ripped from the headlines
- Partly based on Pennsylvania’s “kids for cash” scandal, in which two Luzerne County judges took kickbacks for harsh rulings that kept juveniles flowing into privately run detention centers.
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Crush” begins when 15-year-old Kim Garnet, jeered at by classmates, falls down a school staircase and ends up in a coma. Scans show older injuries, including healed broken ribs and an earlier head wound. Her father, Bill, recently fired from Lehman, breaks down under Stabler’s questioning and offers to take a polygraph. Her boyfriend, Steve Walker, says she blamed her bruises on boxing, and her coach points to Rick Edwards, a gym member who harassed her, but he denies hurting her. CSU technician Dale Stuckey then finds that nude photos Kim took of herself were spread around her school, and that a death threat was faked to look as if it came from her own number.
Phone records show the pictures went first to Ethan Morse, a theater student who wanted more than friendship. Kim was near his Queens home the Friday before her fall, and Steve bought a train ticket to the same stop minutes after she did. The boys blame each other and brawl in the squad room just as Kim wakes, insisting she tripped. Corporation Counsel prosecutor Samantha Copeland orders Benson to arrest Kim for child pornography, betting the charge will make her name her abuser. Benson testifies that Kim never meant to share the pictures, but Judge Hilda Marsden refuses to dismiss, calling teen sexting an epidemic. Kim then turns up with a broken arm, and when she will not name her attacker in court, Marsden jails her for contempt.
Stabler’s daughter Kathleen visits Kim in the lockup and describes her own past with abusive boys. Kim then testifies that Steve took her phone, found the photos she had sent Ethan, spread them and beat her, in Queens and again before court. Marsden skips closing arguments and sends Kim to a juvenile sex-offender facility in Ohio for a year. When Benson asks for Marsden’s sentencing records, senior clerk Ed Mangini stalls, and the judge jails Benson and Kim’s lawyer, Miranda Pond, until Cragen arrives. Copeland finds that Marsden has sent dozens of teenagers there for minor offenses.
Spoiler, the ending: Confronted by Stabler about his Mercedes and Florida condo, Mangini admits he steers children onto Marsden’s docket because her cousin runs the Ohio facility and pays her for every bed she fills. Through Mangini, an undercover officer posing as an angry father meets Marsden about a teenager who wrecked his car; she promises to read the case carefully and suggests a campaign donation. When she piles on charges and remands the teenager the next day, she is arrested in court on state bribery and misconduct counts and federal fraud charges. The chief judge vacates Kim’s conviction and expunges her record. Steve’s fate is not shown.
Why it stands out
- Allison Siko returns as Kathleen Stabler, who draws on her own arrest and jailing in “Swing,” earlier in the season, to persuade Kim to talk.
- Swoosie Kurtz plays Judge Hilda Marsden, Melinda McGraw plays prosecutor Samantha Copeland, and Ezra Miller plays Ethan Morse.
- Alex Kingston returns as defense attorney Miranda Pond, a role she first played in the season’s 14th episode, “Transitions.”