The Troubles (Season 1, Episode 20)
Premise: When one of three shackled federal prisoners is found dead, the NYPD has to fight federal agencies to solve the murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 20
- Detectives
- Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Anthony Heald as Ian O’Connell, Kevin J. O’Connor as Patrick McCarter, Paul-Felix Montez as Savino Montez, Alan North as defense attorney Reilly
- Director
- John P. Whitesell II
- Writers
- Story: Dick Wolf; Story & teleplay: Robert Palm
Summary
The Investigation
“The Troubles” begins with three federal prisoners left together in custody: Ahmed Mustafa, a Lebanese smuggler; Savino Montez, a Cuban drug dealer; and Ian O’Connell, an alleged IRA man whom U.S. authorities have kept locked up for five years without charges, bail or a trial. When officers return, Mustafa has been strangled. The FBI asserts jurisdiction, takes the surviving prisoners back into federal custody and keeps Greevey and Logan at arm’s length.
Montez seems the likelier killer, while Logan finds himself drawn to O’Connell and his cause. Greevey grows suspicious of how neatly the case is being managed from above. Then Montez is found hanged in his federal cell in what looks like a staged suicide. The detectives connect the second death to a federal prison guard, Patrick McCarter, who turns out to be an IRA member himself. The case pulls the detectives into international politics, with foreign officials and the FBI’s counterterrorism agents each holding pieces of the story.
The Trial
Facing a murder charge of his own, McCarter agrees to cooperate in exchange for a reduced charge. He confesses to killing Montez and says he acted on orders from O’Connell, his superior in the IRA, who had silenced Mustafa over a weapons-smuggling deal gone wrong. Stone charges O’Connell with murder despite resistance from federal authorities, who would prefer to avoid a political spectacle.
At trial, O’Connell presents himself as a political activist rather than a gunman and denies any violence. Stone needs something that will cut through that image and show the jury who O’Connell really is. His defense depends on the jury seeing him as a man caught up in a political struggle across the ocean, not as a killer on American soil.
Spoiler, the ending: The prosecution calls a rebuttal witness whose husband and children were killed in an IRA bombing and identifies O’Connell as the bomber. O’Connell is convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Why it stands out
- The case puts the NYPD in conflict with the FBI over jurisdiction, a theme the series often revisited.
- Logan’s sympathy for the Irish cause gives the detective a personal bias to overcome.
- The verdict turns on a surprise rebuttal witness rather than forensic evidence.