Lowdown (Season 5, Episode 20)
Premise: A Bronx prosecutor found strangled on a prostitution stroll turns out to have been living a hidden life, and the trail leads to the colleague he loved.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, 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 Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Michael Beach as Andy Abbott, Bethany Butler as Mary Ellen Abbott, David Aron Damane as DuShawn McGovern, Dean Strange as Jeff York, Romi Dias as Tina Gardner
- Director
- Jud Taylor
- Writers
- Robert Nathan
Summary
“Lowdown” opens on a Bronx prostitution stroll, where officers find a man strangled in his car with a pair of exercise leggings, a lipstick-marked condom nearby and his wallet gone. Benson recognizes Jeff York, a Bronx assistant district attorney she briefly dated five years earlier. Prints lead to a sex worker, Keisha Brown, who admits taking a gym bag from the car but says York was already dead. The bag belongs to York’s investigator, Tina Gardner, who points to Hector Alvarez, a strangler York had just convicted and who threatened him in court. York’s trial partner, Andy Abbott, backs the theory, but Alvarez and his lawyer, Charlie Horner, check out.
Bronx District Attorney Francisco Martinez reveals that York was under internal investigation, which had turned up steady cash withdrawals. The lab finds that the lip print was pressed onto the condom after it was used, and DNA shows that the semen inside is not York’s: another man was in the car. York’s apartment yields AZT and medical bills paid in cash, showing he was HIV positive, and his date book notes drinks with Abbott that night, which Abbott never mentioned. A hotel clerk places York with former Miami running back DuShawn McGovern, and Fin finds that each element of the staged scene comes from one of three cases Abbott prosecuted. Warner tests Benson herself, and the result is negative.
Abbott and McGovern turn out to play in the same weekly poker game. Fin, who explains the idea of men living on the “down low,” presses McGovern into admitting that the games are cover for sex among married men and that Abbott told him he killed York, who loved him and wanted him to leave his wife. Abbott’s DNA matches the condom, but with Zeirko beside him he claims he and York shared a prostitute. McGovern refuses to testify, and Warner can show only that both men carry the same HIV strain. Novak then tells Abbott’s wife, Mary Ellen, about the affair and urges her to get tested. Zeirko files a disciplinary complaint, Mary Clark warns Novak she could lose her license, and Mary Ellen learns she is HIV positive.
Spoiler, the ending: Mary Ellen arranges to see her husband with Novak present and asks him, for their daughters’ sake, to admit what he did. Abbott says he could not accept being gay, argued with York and killed him in anger. He pleads guilty to first-degree manslaughter for 7½ to 15 years, the rest of the record is sealed, and the complaint against Novak is dropped.
Why it stands out
- Benson is revealed to have dated the victim briefly five years earlier.
- Peter Riegert and Marlo Thomas return as Chauncey Zeirko and Mary Clark, a week after both appeared in “Sick.”