Asunder (Season 2, Episode 7)
Premise: A woman accuses her police sergeant husband of rape, but a history of mutual violence and her own recantation make the case a test of whether marital rape can be proved in court.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 7
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Monique Jeffries (Michelle Hurd), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Nestor Serrano as Sgt. Lloyd Andrews, Amy Carlson as Patricia Andrews, Kevin O’Rourke as Sam Tiffany, Paul Stolarsky as Cyrus Parker, Joanna Merlin as Judge Lena Petrovsky
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen; Written by: Judith McCreary
Summary
“Asunder” begins when Patricia Andrews walks into the squad room to report that her husband, Sgt. Lloyd Andrews, a 20-year veteran of Manhattan South Homicide, raped her that morning. She has a sprained wrist and little else to show, and she spars with Munch from the start. Knowing Internal Affairs will be watching, Cragen has the squad tread carefully. A neighbor, Cyrus Parker, says the couple fight every day and that he saw Patricia hurl a pot at her husband before Lloyd dragged her back inside. Records show four earlier domestic calls to the home, each settled on the spot by the same two patrol officers, who describe Patricia as the one who throws things.
Stabler joins Lloyd’s pickup basketball game to size him up, and a detective from Lloyd’s squad, Danny Tatum, roughs him up. Soon after, Parker calls 911 when Patricia, believing Lloyd is in jail, cuts him with a kitchen knife and flings a police baton into the crowd. Questioned, Lloyd denies the rape, admits an affair and says his wife has been unstable since learning she cannot have children. Cabot declines to charge him for lack of evidence, and Lloyd has Patricia charged with assault; she is held on $10,000 bond. Separately, a deputy commissioner tells Cragen that Det. Monique Jeffries has filed a discrimination suit against the department and asks him to make it go away.
After Lloyd pays her bail, Patricia tries to withdraw her complaint, telling Munch that her husband apologized for raping her. Using Parker as a witness to the stabbing, Cabot threatens Patricia with assault charges unless she testifies, and a grand jury indicts Lloyd on rape, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse. His lawyer, Sam Tiffany, chooses a bench trial. The judge admits Munch’s account of the apology over a hearsay objection. Patricia wavers on the stand, and on cross-examination concedes that she recanted and has a deal. Lloyd testifies that his wife is the aggressor and that he apologized only to end the fight; pressed by Cabot, he admits threatening her after she vowed to set him on fire.
In private, Cragen presses Jeffries to rethink her suit. She says he ducked when trouble came, and the talk ends with nothing settled.
Spoiler, the ending: The judge acquits Lloyd on every count, ruling that without corroboration or serious injury the law cannot determine whether a rape occurred inside a marriage. Cabot argues that getting a spousal rape case past a grand jury has changed the climate for the next prosecutor. In the last scene, Tutuola tells Cragen that the gun left on a desk is not his but Jeffries’s, and she is gone from the squad.
Why it stands out
- Det. Monique Jeffries leaves the squad in this episode, although Michelle Hurd returns for a final appearance later in the season in “Runaway.”
- Hurd left the series during the second season to join the Showtime drama Leap Years.