Conned (Season 11, Episode 19)
Premise: A teenage hustler dies at a wedding carrying a runaway’s ID, and the runaway’s story exposes the psychiatrist who has controlled him for years.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 19
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- John Magaro as Andrew Hingham, Ally Walker as Dr. Stanton, Ernest Waddell as Ken Randall, Kristin Griffith as Joyce Hingham, Pressly Coker as Jack Robinson
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Ken Storer
Summary
“Conned” opens when guests at a hotel wedding reception find a young man beaten to death in a storeroom, his face smashed. The bride’s father had thrown him out after a fake toast, and security video shows him slipping back in and going upstairs with the bride’s godfather, a married man from Provo, Utah, who paid “Jack” $200 for sex. A kitchen worker took a Rolex and a wallet from the body, and the wallet, fished out of the trash, holds the ID of Andrew Hingham, 16. Benson and Stabler are breaking the news to Andrew’s mother, Joyce, when Andrew calls her on Skype, alive and frightened, and hangs up on seeing police.
Joyce says psychiatrist Dr. Stanton had Andrew committed last summer with early-onset schizophrenia after he was accused of raping a girl, and he fled the hospital in October with other patients. Stanton blames a con man, Jack Robinson, whose prints identify the dead man. Jack, 19, had run scams since childhood and listed Williams House, a shelter where Fin’s son, Ken Randall, works. Through Joyce’s stolen laptop, TARU’s Morales spots the view from Ken’s new apartment, which he shares with his boyfriend. Ken is furious that Fin suspects him, but helps find Andrew asleep in a lounge at the Metropolitan Opera. Talking to Ken while police listen, Andrew says a high Jack tried to force him into sex, then hit his head when shoved; Andrew smashed his face and left his own wallet so he would be thought dead. ADA Kendra Gill expects no murder charge.
Then Mallory Sidwell tells Cragen that Andrew never raped her; he was her boyfriend, and someone lied to her parents. That caller was Stanton, who also bails Andrew out and keeps him at her home, drugged, with a baby crying in the next room. The squad comes to doubt that Andrew is schizophrenic, and her prescriptions point to a sedating drug mix. Andrew reveals that Stanton began having sex with him when he was 13 and that her baby may be his; after he fell for Mallory, she reported the rape and had him committed. Stanton insists they are in love.
Spoiler, the ending: Stanton pleads guilty to four counts of second-degree rape and is sentenced to 20 years. Allocuting in court, she tells Andrew she acted out of love and asks his forgiveness. Judge Lois Preston says she would put her away for life if she could, and as she is led off Stanton promises Andrew she will wait for him.
Why it stands out
- Ernest Waddell returns as Fin’s son, Ken Randall, his first appearance since Season 8’s “Screwed”; Ken now counsels street kids and lives with his boyfriend.
- Ally Walker plays Dr. Stanton, and John Magaro plays Andrew.