Greed (Season 3, Episode 20)
Premise: A rich widow is raped and left for dead in her townhouse, and a planted frame-up against a locksmith hides a pair of Canadian con artists who married their victims.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 20
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Henry Winkler as Edwin Todd, Mary Beth Hurt as Jessica Blaine-Todd, Roy Thinnes as Curtis Johansen, Sherri Parker Lee as Denise Johansen, Alex Feldman as Danny Ryan
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Greed” opens as restaurateur Edwin Todd and his real estate agent, Randy Taylor, come home to Todd’s Upper East Side townhouse and find his wife, Jessica Blaine-Todd, raped and beaten in the kitchen. She survives a fractured skull, but a probable stroke leaves her unable to speak or move her right side. Nothing was forced, and a $35,000 Rolex is gone. With Munch summoned to jury duty, Cragen and Fin question the cleaner, Katarina Dinov, whose boyfriend, limo driver Andrei Gorsky, had her keys that night; he was with another girlfriend, and, pressed over his visa, he says Katarina heard the Todds argue. On a whiteboard, Jessica writes that she heard a key in the door.
The rapist’s DNA matches an attack two weeks earlier in Brooklyn Heights on Denise Johansen, whose husband, Curtis, was away; she describes a masked gunman who took a $100,000 diamond bracelet. The same locksmith, Danny Ryan, a law-school hopeful, had changed the locks at both houses, and his prints are found inside each. The stolen jewelry turns up in his toolbox, but a judge suppresses it because the detectives had only the employer’s consent to search the van. Ryan’s DNA then fails to match, and the squad concludes he was set up.
A partial print on the bracelet belongs to Todd. Jessica, a widow, has given Todd $200,000 for a restaurant whose vendors do not exist and has made him her sole heir. The real Edwin Todd is a retiree near Seattle. A Village apartment that Todd and Denise rent as “the Browns” holds a boarding pass to Winnipeg, and Canadian police identify the pair as Edward Crandall and Denise Cormier, both jailed there for fraud. Curtis, who has pledged $250,000 to the restaurant, says he and Denise had sex just before his trip, and his DNA is found in both women: Denise faked her own rape and planted his semen on Jessica.
Each schemer confesses to a spouse and then invokes marital privilege, and Jessica forgives Todd. An arrest over the name Denise Carlson on her marriage license stalls when her lawyer produces a Canadian name change, but a credit card bill from an Acapulco honeymoon suite leads to a Mexican license showing Crandall and Denise are married to each other.
Spoiler, the ending: Absent a divorce, Cabot says, both later marriages are void and the privilege falls away. Denise blames Crandall, who turns on her. When Jessica is brought in, Todd admits he took her money, says Denise was only meant to steal the watch, and urges Jessica to go away with him; he is told the only place he is going is hell. No trial is shown.
Why it stands out
- Henry Winkler, best known as Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli on Happy Days, plays the con man calling himself Edwin Todd; he is a cousin of Richard Belzer, whose Munch spends most of this episode on jury duty.
- Mary Beth Hurt, a three-time Tony nominee whose films include The World According to Garp, plays Jessica Blaine-Todd.