Official Story (Season 13, Episode 12)
Premise: A vigilante father’s assault on a military contractor’s CEO leads SVU and a new executive ADA to the gang rape of the man’s daughter in Iraq and the company’s cover-up.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 12
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Exec. ADA David Haden (Harry Connick Jr.)
- Guest stars
- John Doman as William Rand, Holt McCallany as Donald O’Keefe, Megan Ketch as Corey Green, Billy Brown as Joe Marshall, Lola Glaudini as Virginia Pell
- Director
- Michael Smith
- Writers
- Peter Blauner
Summary
“Official Story” begins with William Rand, head of Battle Tested Security, the world’s largest private military contractor, heckled by an Occupy Wall Street protester outside a TV studio. His car then takes him uptown instead of to the heliport, and he is found in a park, drugged and beaten, with his clothes torn and a threat about payback written on his leg. Rand denies being raped and, with general counsel Virginia Pell, stonewalls the detectives. The protester points them to a black pickup seen near Rand for months, registered to former Marine Donald O’Keefe, who readily admits the attack.
O’Keefe says it was revenge for his daughter, Corey Green, who was drugged and gang-raped by four Battle Tested colleagues in Basra four years earlier, then held under guard for 72 hours. Her rape kit vanished and federal prosecutors never filed charges. Rand fails to pick O’Keefe out of a lineup, and O’Keefe is arraigned anyway. Cragen introduces Exec. ADA David Haden, newly moved up from the rackets bureau, whom the detectives suspect of shielding Rand. Instead, after a Justice Department official warns him off, Haden argues that a cover-up directed from Rand’s New York headquarters would give the city jurisdiction.
Dr. Roush, the army doctor who examined Corey, describes the evidence she collected, then recants before the grand jury and lines up a job in Bahrain at a college where Rand is a trustee. Pressed, she admits she was made to test four men for STDs, and Joe Marshall, Corey’s former supervisor and now a senior vice president, calls the sex consensual. The squad finds George Coleman, a former guard who let Corey call her father, in a Florida drunk tank, and he says the orders came from Rand’s office. Rand visits the precinct and lets Haden know he has Corey’s psychiatric history. The night before Coleman is to testify, he dies of alcohol poisoning in a motel room the squad had cleared of liquor, Corey is attacked and her father is stabbed in jail.
Spoiler, the ending: Coleman’s last call leads to Pell, who phones Rand after the detectives’ visit; he calls her “baby,” and she mentions “the mountain.” Marshall is held as a material witness, and Amaro confronts him after a caller reaches his young daughter, Zara, at home. Told that Rand has emptied the Iron Mountain storage unit where the rape kit was kept, Marshall produces evidence he held back and testifies that Rand ordered Corey confined and the kit taken. Rand is arrested on his way to his yacht, and Corey tells her father. Benson and Haden, who earlier postponed drinks, agree they work well together, but a nightcap waits again.
Why it stands out
- Harry Connick Jr. makes his first appearance as Executive ADA David Haden, cast in a four-episode arc as a prosecutor who becomes Benson’s love interest.
- Holt McCallany’s role as O’Keefe was his third time working with showrunner Warren Leight, after the FX series Lights Out and a Law & Order: Criminal Intent season premiere.
- The case turns on the legal gray zone for private contractors in Iraq, who cannot be court-martialed and were placed beyond Iraqi law by Order 17.