Downloaded Child (Season 15, Episode 19)
Premise: A young mother who left her six-year-old locked in alone for two days is revealed to be the child in widely traded abuse videos, and Barba uses federal law to make the men who downloaded them pay.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 19
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin)
- Guest stars
- Meghann Fahy as Jenny Aschler, Ella Anderson as Maddie Aschler, Daniel Stewart Sherman as Gary Aschler, Frank Deal as FBI Agent O’Connell, Jeremy Shamos as Roger Pierce
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by “Amy Unknown,” a victim of child-abuse images whose fight for restitution from those who possessed them reached the U.S. Supreme Court as Paroline v. United States in 2014.
- Director
- Adam Bernstein
- Writers
- Story: Julie Martin & Warren Leight; Teleplay: Jill Abbinanti
Summary
“Downloaded Child” opens with Benson rushing past Cassidy’s request to talk to get to family court, where Baby Boy Doe, the infant she found, is sent back to an ACS facility. Then the squad finds six-year-old Maddie stranded on the balcony of an apartment sealed with four locks and a police bar. Rescued, she tells Rollins her mother has been gone two nights. The mother, Jenny Aschler, 22, was jailed for shoplifting a birthday doll while on probation, and says she would never leave Maddie with her estranged husband, Gary.
Gary’s brother Bobby, Maddie’s father, is in Attica for cooking meth; he prostituted Jenny, got her pregnant at 16 and handed her to Gary. Jenny admits Gary hits her before sex but believes a husband cannot rape his wife. At Barba’s urging, the detectives get Gary to sign a statement bragging that he ignores her refusals. At home, Cassidy tells Benson he feels they are out of sync. Rejecting Rollins’s idea of a Bellevue evaluation, Benson asks her own therapist, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, to assess Jenny, who recalls being with Bobby at 14 but little of her childhood.
Jenny’s mother, Tammy Dobbs, calls her a lifelong troublemaker and hands over photos taken by her second husband, Jerry Dobbs. FBI Agent O’Connell recognizes Jenny as “Lacy Unknown,” the child in hundreds of videos of her sexual abuse by Jerry that are still traded online a decade later; Jerry died in a car crash two years ago. Barba finds a path to restitution from the men who download the images. Jenny recognizes herself in an early photo but insists the abused girl is “Lacy,” and is shattered to learn the videos are online. After she bursts into Benson’s therapy session as Lacy, she enters psychiatric care and Maddie goes to a foster home.
At the sentencing of Bruce Corbett, an EMT convicted of possessing the images, Jenny tells him face to face what the abuse did to her life. He apologizes, pays $20,000 and names more than 700 men he traded files with, but faced with a stack of FBI notices, Jenny says she cannot go on. Barba then targets CEO Roger Pierce: plead to possession, accept house arrest and pay Jenny’s entire $4 million in losses, or face distribution charges and a decade in prison. Pierce pays.
Spoiler, the ending: With the money placed in a trust, Jenny accepts strict custody terms and is reunited with Maddie. What happens to Gary is not shown. Benson tells Cassidy they found each other at their lowest points and that something better may await each of them; after talking about family and growing old, they part saying they will always love each other.
Why it stands out
- Benson ends her relationship with Cassidy (Dean Winters) in this episode.
- The custody case of Baby Boy Doe, which opens the episode, continues to occupy Benson through the season finale, “Spring Awakening.”
- Meghann Fahy guest stars as Jenny Aschler.