Brothel (Season 20, Episode 15)
Premise: The death of a sex worker who fled a pop-up brothel leads Fin and a Vice sergeant from his past to corrupt cops and a judge who supplied the women.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 15
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge Elana Barth (Jenna Stern)
- Guest stars
- Jennifer Esposito as Phoebe Baker, John Rothman as Judge Edward Kofax, Rebecca Forsythe as Anne Kuzman, Adrian Alvarado as Carlos Ramirez, Baylen Thomas as Collum O'Connor
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Julie Martin & Ryan Causey
Summary
“Brothel” opens inside the Dollhouse, a pop-up brothel, where a young woman named Torie turns on her handlers with a pistol. She is later found dead below a rooftop, half-dressed and bruised, with a gun beside her, and the apartment she fled has been emptied overnight. Prints identify her as Torie Meeks, 22, a former foster child with heroin and burglary arrests who entered drug treatment court and dropped out of sight a few months earlier. Judge Edward Kofax, who runs that court, and her case manager, Morris, say she seemed to be recovering.
A custom-made $2,500 shoe left behind leads through its maker, Paretto, to Collum O’Connor, a married Wall Street commuter, who says Torie tied him up, knocked out the bouncer to take his gun and cried that jail would be better than the brothel; a bearded Hispanic man, the bouncer and a woman went after her. Fin turns to Sgt. Phoebe Baker of Vice, a friend from his narcotics days, who finds the Dollhouse’s new online ad. The squad gets its warrant after finding Kofax and Judge Elana Barth having drinks together, but the raid finds the apartment empty. Ballistics then traces the gun by Torie’s body to a Vice drug case; the evidence bag holds a brick.
Three Vice detectives were in the lockup that day. Agreeing to hold off Internal Affairs so Baker can clean her own house, Fin puts them under surveillance and spots Det. Carlos Ramirez at a new brothel. Baker leaves to get a warrant from Kofax, but the place empties again, leaving behind Anne Kuzman, 25, too high to run. Fin, who dated Baker after his divorce, accuses her of the leak. Anne says Carlos runs the Dollhouse and keeps the women working with drugs and threats, that Torie was pushed off the roof, and that a woman called Fee, claiming to be a cop in recovery, recruited her; she does not pick out Baker. Fin apologizes, and Baker feeds Ramirez a false tip, which he takes straight to Kofax.
Torie, Anne and four other women all passed through Kofax’s drug court, and he signed the warrants for 14 Vice raids that were tipped off. Barth, cooperating, records him asking her for leniency at Anne’s arraignment, and detectives arrest him.
Spoiler, the ending: Ramirez, Officer Felicia Taggert and bouncer Devon Jones tell Internal Affairs that Kofax ran the scheme. He insists he kept the women alive by giving them clean doses, then speaks of his daughter, Delia, who died of an overdose at 16. Kofax takes a deal for 25 years. Anne starts treatment again, and Fin asks Baker to try again; she is seeing someone else.
Why it stands out
- Jennifer Esposito plays Sgt. Phoebe Baker of Vice, a former girlfriend of Fin’s.
- John Rothman’s Judge Edward Kofax, who presided over William Lewis’s trial in Season 15, turns out to be the man behind the trafficking ring.
- Jenna Stern returns as Judge Elana Barth.