Hitman (Season 13, Episode 6)
Premise: A Manhattan contractor is shot in what looks like a professional hit, and a trail of money and phone calls leads from his unfaithful wife and her lover to a hit man already in federal custody.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 6
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Gretchen Egolf as Sherri Rosatti, Bobby Cannavale as Randy Porter, Rocco Sisto as Jamie Astangura, Tony Darrow as Bobby “Bobby Vig” Vignerelli, Arthur J. Nascarella as Jerry Malick
- Director
- Richard Dobbs
- Writers
- Eric Overmyer
Summary
The Investigation
“Hitman” opens with contractor Tony Rosatti found dead in his Manhattan townhouse, shot once in the back of the head in a staged burglary. With no casings, prints or stray blood, Briscoe and Green suspect a professional hit. Rosatti faced many lawsuits and a federal racketeering probe, though investigators call him a minor player. His second wife, Sherri, skipped the Connecticut spa she booked and spent the weekend in Bermuda with Randy Porter, one of her husband’s electricians, paying for his ticket.
A prenuptial clause left Sherri nothing if she strayed, and a private investigator hired by Rosatti had photographed the affair. Sherri insists her husband was nearly bankrupt, but his childhood friend, loan shark Bobby “Vig” Vignerelli, tells of a hidden account in her name. Three months before the murder, $50,000 was wired from it to an offshore bank, and Rosatti’s safe-deposit box holds a recent $3 million term life policy naming Sherri.
U.S. Attorney Raymond Berman traces the offshore account to hit man Jamie Astangura, who has been a cooperating federal prisoner for two months. Astangura took the contract by phone through a chain of middlemen but was arrested before he could act. The throwaway phone he called turns up in Porter’s apartment, and Porter is arrested. Porter points to Sherri’s father, Jerry Malick, a retired undercover organized-crime detective who knew Astangura, and Sherri is arrested mid-match on a tennis court.
The Trial
Sherri and Porter are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy, and each blames the other. Lacking proof of who fired the shot, the prosecutors link each defendant separately to Astangura. On the stand, Astangura says a man answered the throwaway phone, but under cross-examination he cannot rule out Malick’s voice. Sherri casts Porter as the schemer; Porter calls her money-hungry and notes she had a key to his apartment.
As the prosecutors weigh manslaughter offers for the gunman’s name, the phone is traced to a Red Hook bodega, which points to Vignerelli. His bank records show a $50,000 check to Rosatti shortly before the Astangura wire and another $50,000 withdrawal a month later. Accused of paying a second hit man, Vignerelli calls in Rosatti’s lawyer, Austin Foster, who brings a sealed videotape.
Spoiler, the ending: On the tape, Rosatti admits he arranged everything, including the hit man, the transfer from Sherri’s account and the phone planted in Porter’s apartment, to send his wife and her lover to prison; Vignerelli lent the money without knowing its purpose. McCoy lets Vignerelli go, and the person who actually shot Rosatti is never identified. No verdict is shown. Sherri stands to lose the insurance payout under the suicide clause, though she is expected to contest it.
Why it stands out
- The murder victim turns out to have ordered his own killing, framing his wife and her lover for it.
- Sherri’s father, a retired detective, grumbles that he served under former DA Adam Schiff, whom he faults for taking defendants’ rights too seriously.
- Unable to prove who pulled the trigger, the prosecutors use a jailed hit man as an unindicted co-conspirator tied to each defendant.