Rotten (Season 4, Episode 13)
Premise: An inmate’s death from a brutal sexual assault leads Benson and Fin back to the precinct where he was booked, and to two officers killing drug dealers.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 13
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- William Mapother as Luke Edmunds, Terry Serpico as Les Cooper, Agustin Rodriguez as Hector Ramirez, Jose Pablo Cantillo as Wilberto “Willie” Angel, Amy Landecker as Stephanie Grayson
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Judy McCreary
Summary
“Rotten” opens in the Tombs, Manhattan’s jail, where new inmate Carlos Torres is found dead in his bunk, having bled internally after being sodomized with an object. With Stabler away at a VICAP seminar, Benson and Fin take the case. His cellmate, Ortega, says Torres scorned him for being gay, and Hector Ramirez, a Mexican held for murder, faked a toothache to visit the infirmary while Torres was there, but the nurse says Ramirez never got near him. She adds that Torres arrived vomiting and feverish and was taken to the shower by guard Nathan Duarte, a gay man he had insulted. His alibi, Legal Aid lawyer Chris Hartford, confirms they spent the night together.
The medical examiner finds wood splinters and an infection proving Torres was hurt hours before he reached the jail. He was arrested outside Club Rendezvous by Officers Les Cooper and Randall Grant of the 29th Precinct after punching Officer Luke Edmunds in a street brawl; Edmunds, sent to the hospital, returned to the precinct and knows details never released. CSU finds a bloody plunger in a station bathroom, Edmunds confesses, and with the department eager for quiet, Cabot reluctantly accepts a manslaughter plea of 10 to 20 years.
Warner finds bruises showing Torres was held down, so Edmunds had help, and Cragen lets the detectives keep digging off the record. Edmunds’ girlfriend, nurse Stephanie Grayson, says he shot a dealer in self-defense after his younger brother died of an overdose, but that dealer, Javier Vasquez, had his throat cut. Defying orders to stay out of the 29th, Fin learns Cooper was Edmunds’ partner at the time. Cooper owns a Corvette and a Boca Raton condo held in his wife’s name, and Warner links five unsolved killings of local dealers by the same throat bruise. Cabot withdraws Edmunds’ plea deal.
Edmunds admits killing dealers to avenge his brother, who was given cocaine at 13, but says he never knew Cooper was paid. He points to Willie Angel, a dealer serving 25 years in Sing Sing whom Cooper shot and framed with a planted gun. Angel, paralyzed by the bullet, confirms it, and Cabot moves to free him. Fin loses ten days’ pay for disobeying orders as appeals pour in from people the two officers arrested, and Cooper is charged with murder.
Spoiler, the ending: Facing a possible death sentence, Cooper takes life without parole and gives up the man who paid him: Hector Ramirez, who used a police officer to wipe out his competition. Ramirez sneers that witnesses can forget before any execution. In the final scene, Benson learns that Edmunds has killed himself in custody, leaving no note.
Why it stands out
- William Mapother, later Ethan Rom on Lost and a first cousin of Tom Cruise, plays Officer Luke Edmunds.
- Chad L. Coleman, later Dennis “Cutty” Wise on The Wire, appears as the prison warden.
- Christopher Meloni and Richard Belzer are credited but do not appear; Stabler is said to be away at a VICAP seminar.