Entitled (Season 10, Episode 14)
Premise: In the second half of a crossover with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a mob hit man reveals that a killing pinned on a serial gunman was staged to protect a powerful family’s daughter.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Jane Alexander as Regina Mulroney, Noelle Beck as Stephanie Mulroney, Josef Sommer as attorney Patrick Rumsey, Steve Mones as César Ordóñez, Katy Selverstone as Emily Shore
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Story: Dick Wolf, René Balcer & Robert Palm; Teleplay: Richard Sweren
Summary
The Investigation
“Entitled” picks up after Arthur Pruitt, a drifter tied to an old run of .44-caliber shootings, has confessed to killing Dean Woodruff, who was found shot in his car. With garment executive Stanley Brecker also shot dead, a task force of homicide and Special Victims detectives chases a mob angle. Brecker’s widow admits he was beaten weeks before and sold their daughter’s college bonds, and an informant says trash-hauling boss Gus Iacone brought in an enforcer from Ohio to squeeze garment firms.
The enforcer, César Ordóñez, served time with Pruitt in California. The case’s eyewitness, webcam performer Helen Katisch, vanishes after meeting a supposed movie producer, and divers recover her body and Ordóñez’s Lincoln from the river. Her blood and a bullet matching Brecker’s are in the car. Facing a death sentence, Ordóñez says Woodruff was already dead when he was called in: Stephanie Mulroney killed him in her apartment, and Ordóñez shot the body to mimic Pruitt and then killed Brecker as cover.
The Trial
Family lawyer Patrick Rumsey says Stephanie hit Woodruff with an ashtray while fighting off a rape, and two women back up claims of Woodruff’s violence. A judge bars Ordóñez from testifying against Iacone because of his perjury record. Regina Mulroney visits Schiff, an old friend. Carmichael shows both women lied; one admits a man named Pat paid her. Rumsey, Regina and Stephanie are charged with murder and tampering.
Rumsey takes a deal to plead to one murder and testifies that Regina gave him Iacone’s number on the night of the killing and later had him seek help clearing Stephanie. He says the sex was consensual and Stephanie struck Woodruff when he tried to leave. Stephanie testifies to self-defense, and McCoy attacks her history of lies. On cross-examination Regina recounts the husband and two children she has lost and accuses McCoy of insulting her family.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Stephanie of tampering with evidence but deadlocks on murder, and it acquits Regina on all counts. McCoy sees little point in retrying Stephanie with her mother watching from the gallery.
Why it stands out
- The episode completes a crossover that starts on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, with Benson, Stabler, Munch and Cragen working alongside Briscoe and Green.
- It follows up on the case from the 1994 episode “Mayhem”.
- Jane Alexander guest stars as the Mulroney matriarch, an old friend of Schiff’s.