Net Worth (Season 18, Episode 14)
Premise: A junior investment banker accuses her firm’s billionaire client of rape, and his allies use emails, tabloid photos and a lucrative job offer to make the case go away.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 18, Episode 14
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
- Guest stars
- Missy Peregrym as Zoe White, Tate Donovan as Eli Colton, Jordan Bridges as Roger Littrell, Will Brill as Harry Ingram, Erica Sweany as Kate Tompkins
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson; Written by: Rick Eid & Jeffrey Baker
Summary
“Net Worth” opens at a celebration for billionaire Eli Colton, whose fund is the biggest client of the investment bank Cromwell Moore. The next day Zoe White, a junior banker there, tells Benson that Colton raped her in his penthouse bedroom after the party. She had told her boss, Roger Littrell, who says she never used the word rape, and the bank’s CEO, Dan Hewitt, wants to consult the general counsel first. Colton turns Rollins and Carisi away, but a model named Zoya says Roger paid her $20,000 to be Colton’s date. Earlier, in the squad room, Fin waits for word on a promotion to sergeant and tells the others to stop asking.
Zoe’s rape kit shows injuries consistent with assault. Through his lawyer, Colton calls the sex consensual and produces a flirty email sent from Zoe’s computer the morning after; she says she never wrote it. A former colleague of Colton’s points the squad to Kate Tompkins, who reported him for rape three years earlier, then recanted and signed a nondisclosure agreement after a payout; she also worked under Littrell. A newspaper runs bikini photos of Zoe taken at Colton’s Hamptons house. Zoe recalls a flash of light during the attack, and at the penthouse the detectives find a roof door and a service elevator. Its camera shows cocaine dealer Harry Ingram riding up at 2:45 a.m. and leaving five minutes later. A detective posing as a buyer gets him arrested, and Ingram says he saw Colton on top of Zoe as she told him to stop.
Wearing a wire, Ingram asks Colton for $500,000 to keep quiet; Colton denies everything but offers a million. Barba wants more. Benson warns Hewitt that his bank will be dragged into the scandal, and he hands over Cromwell Moore’s recordings of its offices, which show Zoe telling Littrell she was raped and Littrell typing at her computer later. Colton is arrested for first-degree rape. Zoe then reveals that another bank, Sullivan Davis, has offered her $5 million annually for four years on condition that she keep a low profile, and she means to accept. A photo shows Colton dining with that bank’s chief, but Barba says the deal cannot be proved and the choice is hers.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson tells Zoe that taking money for her silence lets Colton win again, and brings in Kate to talk with her. At trial Zoe testifies that Colton pinned her down and raped her. The prosecution plays the bank video of her talking to Littrell and has her read the Sullivan Davis offer, and Zoe says she turned down $20 million so Colton could not take her dignity again. No verdict is shown.
Why it stands out
- Tate Donovan guest stars as billionaire Eli Colton, with Missy Peregrym as Zoe White.
- The squad teases Fin about his pending promotion to sergeant.