False Accusations 30 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Charges that turn out to be invented or recanted, and the damage they do to everyone involved.
- Season 2 · Episode 8
Taken
A teenage tourist reports a brutal rape at a new hotel’s grand opening, and a registered sex offender is jailed for it before the detectives find a family con aimed at the hotel’s owner.
- Season 3 · Episode 1
Repression
A college student accuses her wealthy father of years of sexual abuse, and when he is shot dead after the case collapses, the memories her therapist helped uncover come under scrutiny.
- Season 5 · Episode 19
Sick
A 12-year-old’s violent online fantasies lead detectives to a wealthy toy heir who bought his family’s silence, and then to a second accuser whose story is not what it seems.
- Season 6 · Episode 5
Outcry
A teenager found bound at a campus construction site says cadets raped her, but her shifting story and a media frenzy hide the man she is really afraid of.
- Season 6 · Episode 8
Doubt
A graduate student says her professor raped her, he says it was rough sex she asked for, and the detectives split over whom to believe.
- Season 6 · Episode 11
Contagious
A medical exam after a car crash reveals that a nine-year-old has been abused, but the man she names may not be the one who hurt her.
- Season 7 · Episode 11
Alien
A Catholic schoolboy’s stabbing leads to an eight-year-old girl with two mothers, and her grandparents use the case to try to take her from the woman who raised her.
- Season 7 · Episode 22
Influence
A teenager’s false rape claim and a fatal crash reveal that she quit her bipolar medication on the word of a rock star.
- Season 8 · Episode 11
Burned
A mother accuses her estranged husband of rape during a bitter custody fight, and the case divides Benson and Stabler until it ends in fire.
- Season 8 · Episode 19
Florida
Benson risks her career for her fugitive half brother, learns the truth about the man who fathered them both, and uncovers who really framed Simon.
- Season 10 · Episode 2
Confession
A teenager asks SVU for help with his attraction to his little stepbrother, and the case widens to a website for pedophiles, a furious stepfather and a killing.
- Season 11 · Episode 3
Solitary
A woman’s disappearance points SVU to an ex-con Stabler sent to prison two decades ago, and the fallout puts long-term solitary confinement on trial.
- Season 12 · Episode 21
Reparations
A teacher’s rape accusation against a Black deliveryman uncovers a 1964 Klan attack on his mother in which her own grandfather took part.
- Season 12 · Episode 23
Delinquent
A teenager caught in a woman’s bed falsely accuses Stabler of molesting him, and the detectives come to suspect he is a serial rapist.
- Season 13 · Episode 18
Valentine's Day
A wife’s rape and kidnapping, witnessed by her husband over a video chat, turns into a case against the supposed victim.
- Season 13 · Episode 21
Learning Curve
A gang’s attack on Fin’s son’s fiancé and the beating of a teacher accused of abuse lead SVU into a private school where a student’s accusations keep shifting.
- Season 14 · Episode 3
Twenty-Five Acts
The credited author of a bestselling erotic novel accuses a talk-show host of rape, and the case turns on whether a jury will believe her once her secret comes out.
- Season 14 · Episode 17
Undercover Blue
When a woman says Brian Cassidy raped her years ago while he was undercover, his defense drags Amaro’s own undercover past into court.
- Season 15 · Episode 7
Dissonant Voices
A four-year-old’s claim that his music teacher, a TV singing coach, abused him snowballs into nine accusations before SVU learns who scripted the story.
- Season 16 · Episode 2
American Disgrace
A press rep accuses a beloved retired basketball star of drugging and raping her, and two more women come forward, each paid by the same sponsor.
- Season 16 · Episode 22
Parents' Nightmare
When an eight-year-old is taken from school and held for ransom, SVU has to work out which of his divorced parents set up the abduction.
- Season 18 · Episode 10
Motherly Love
A teenager kills his best friend to stop what his psychiatrist mother calls a rape, until SVU learns she was the one abusing the boy.
- Season 19 · Episode 15
In Loco Parentis
Carisi’s niece recants a campus rape claim to him, then says the student she accused raped her in revenge, putting Carisi’s honesty on trial.
- Season 20 · Episode 13
A Story of More Woe
A teenager confesses to killing her father to protect her younger sister from abuse, but the story points SVU toward the helpful neighbor who has taken the girls in.
- Season 20 · Episode 20
The Good Girl
A pregnant 13-year-old names her drama teacher as the father, but after her stepfather kills him, SVU learns the stepfather legally married her in Missouri.
- Season 21 · Episode 3
Down Low in Hell's Kitchen
A closeted pop star says he was assaulted by a serial rapist who targets Black men living on the down low, but his account falls apart as the squad closes in on the real attacker.
- Season 21 · Episode 15
Swimming with the Sharks
A wellness CEO reports that her finance chief raped her, then is accused of fraud and sexual assault herself as her executives work to push her out.
- Season 22 · Episode 1
Guardians and Gladiators
After a white woman’s false 911 call gets a Black man arrested at the scene of a rape in Central Park, the squad faces a lawsuit, an IAB inquiry and a distrustful grand jury.
- Season 27 · Episode 4
Clickbait
A 13-year-old’s near-fatal pregnancy and a wave of fake nude images lead the squad to a jealous classmate and then to the AI company whose app made the pictures.
- Season 27 · Episode 13
Corrosive
When Carisi’s mentor is shot after a student accuses him of rape online, SVU finds a manipulative father running his son’s dorm room like a cult.