Personal Fouls (Season 13, Episode 2)
Premise: A former player’s accusation against a revered basketball coach runs into the statute of limitations, forcing SVU to seek help from a guarded pro star.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 2
- 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), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Dan Lauria as Coach Ray Masters, Aaron Tveit as Stevie Harris, Mehcad Brooks as Prince Miller, Heavy D as Supreme, Socorro Santiago as Domenica Ramos
- Director
- Jim McKay
- Writers
- Bryan Goluboff
Summary
“Personal Fouls” opens as Ray Masters, longtime coach at St. Valerie High and of the summer-league Barons, enters the Metro Basketball Hall of Fame, and former player Stevie Harris disrupts the ceremony, shouting that Masters belongs in jail. At SVU, Cragen tells Benson that Stabler is not returning, has her clear out his desk and introduces Det. Nick Amaro, a transfer from narcotics and warrants; partners will rotate for now. Stevie, a heroin addict, slips away from the officer guarding him at a hospital, and Fin and Amaro find him at a street court. He says Masters began molesting him at nine during a tournament in Boston, kept on until he was about 15, and then paid him every month until just after his 24th birthday.
Masters calls the money loans. Cabot explains that the statute of limitations ran out when Stevie turned 23 unless the payments can be shown to be ongoing hush money. The squad turns up a sealed 1988 charge in Trenton: Domenica Ramos says Masters molested her son Richie, who hanged himself two days before a grand jury was to hear the case. Rollins follows payments through the coach’s Ray’s Boys foundation, but the former players who got checks deny any abuse. Stevie then names his childhood best friend, pro basketball star Prince Miller, who, flanked by his cousin and manager, Supreme, and lawyer David Arnoff, admits nothing. Cabot finds that Massachusetts stops the clock whenever a suspect leaves the state, which could revive the Boston abuse, but Stevie is beaten in a confrontation outside Prince’s club and found dead of a heroin overdose hours later. Warner will not rule it a homicide or a suicide.
Prince offers a time-stamped video placing him at home with two women all night. A sneaker print at the scene, though, matches the one-of-a-kind prototype shoes Supreme wears, and traces of Stevie’s blood are found on them; Supreme is taken in. With the coach still free and his witness dead, Cabot wants to force Prince before a grand jury. Instead, the detectives take him to a Barons practice, where Masters greets him as his favorite player and Prince learns the coach is about to take young star Devon Tiswell and the team to a tournament in California.
Spoiler, the ending: Prince testifies before the grand jury and then makes a public statement: Masters recruited him at ten and abused him from his first road trip until he was 15, and he urges other victims to come forward. The outcome of the case against Masters is not shown.
Why it stands out
- Danny Pino makes his first appearance as Det. Nick Amaro, who transfers in from narcotics.
- NBA players Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh appear as themselves.
- Heavy D, who plays Supreme, made his final acting appearance in this episode; he died on November 8, 2011.