Collateral Damages (Season 17, Episode 15)
Premise: A sting on a celebrity boxer leads SVU to a child pornography ring and to the NYPD’s own deputy commissioner for public information.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 15
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Sgt. Mike Dodds (Andy Karl), Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Judge Colin McNamara (Stephen C. Bradbury), Defense Attorney Roger Kressler (Ned Eisenberg)
- Guest stars
- Josh Pais as Deputy Commissioner Hank Abraham, Jessica Phillips as Pippa Cox, Danny Johnson as Teddy “Brown Sugar” Hawkins, Susie Essman as Arlene Heller, Robert John Burke as IAB Captain Ed Tucker
- Ripped from the headlines
- Loosely inspired by the 2015 arrest of director Jace Alexander on child pornography charges.
- Director
- Rosemary Rodriguez
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen; Written by: Samantha Corbin-Miller
Summary
“Collateral Damages” opens with a sting at the barbecue restaurant of former heavyweight champion Teddy “Brown Sugar” Hawkins. Rollins, posing as an aunt, brings in a police academy recruit playing her niece Amber, who is almost 16. Hawkins pours them spiked iced tea, takes the girl to his office to see his belts, photographs her topless and orders her to her knees, and the squad arrests him for attempted rape. Deputy Commissioner Hank Abraham, the department’s public relations chief, wants a perp walk. To avoid it, Hawkins’s lawyer, Arlene Heller, offers his help exposing online child pornography distributors, and Barba agrees to hold off on the arraignment.
Working Hawkins’s contacts after midnight, the squad arrests Daniel Pullman and traces a third user to an elderly man, Mr. Markowitz, who has no computer; his modem is feeding the apartment next door. Pippa Cox, a city lawyer for children’s services who has worked with SVU, lets Rollins and Carisi in, and they find her husband, Abraham, uploading images. IAB’s Ed Tucker joins Benson, and a search finds flash drives of child pornography taped under Abraham’s underwear drawer. With Roger Kressler beside him, Abraham calls it a political hit and a single accident, but records show 19 hours on the account in the past week. Interviews with his children, Lia, 4, and Jordan, 11, reveal no abuse.
Abraham is released on $30,000 bail to home detention, barred from computers and phones. Mobbed by reporters and placed on leave from her job, Pippa accuses Benson of payback until Benson makes clear that Hank did it. Sgt. Mike Dodds, on leave after being shot during the Yates manhunt, is pressed by his father, Deputy Chief William Dodds, to move to the Joint Terrorism Task Force; Benson tells him the choice is his. In a meeting arranged by Kressler, Abraham asks to put the charges on hold while he goes to rehab, but Barba warns that federal prosecutors are eager to take the case, with far longer sentences. Abraham then slashes his wrists; Pippa finds him in time, and he survives.
Spoiler, the ending: Hawkins admits a single misdemeanor charge of unlawfully dealing with a child and sets up a $1 million fund for victims of addiction and sexual abuse. Dodds tells his father he is staying at SVU. Abraham pleads guilty to possessing obscene sexual performances by a child and, on Barba’s recommendation, receives concurrent four-year terms in protective custody and at least 20 years on the sex offender registry. Pippa says she is standing by him for the sake of their children.
Why it stands out
- Josh Pais returns as Deputy Commissioner Hank Abraham, and Jessica Phillips as Pippa Cox, a city lawyer who has worked with SVU on earlier cases.
- Sgt. Mike Dodds, wounded in the previous episode’s manhunt, turns down his father’s push toward the Joint Terrorism Task Force to stay at SVU.