Mammon (Season 15, Episode 12)
Premise: A wealthy venture capitalist is beaten to death in his renovated townhouse, and suspicion falls on his young wife and the contractor who installed the alarm system and shared her bed.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 12
- Detectives
- Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina), 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
- Daniel Sunjata as Kenny Tremont, Andrea Roth as Marley Emerson, John Benjamin Hickey as defense attorney Aaron Solomon, Tracie Thoms as Linda Ziman, Jama Williamson as Tina
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- William N. Fordes & Douglas Stark
Summary
The Investigation
“Mammon” begins with the bludgeoning of venture capitalist Greg Emerson, 50, in his townhouse. The bedroom safe is open, the bed is stripped, and the hard drive of a new security system is gone; alarm records show it was disarmed shortly before 11:30 on Sunday night. The killer kept striking him after he fell unconscious.
His much younger wife, Marley, was at a Massachusetts spa and reports about $200,000 in cash and millions in jewelry missing. Contractor Kenny Tremont, who renovated the house and helped install the alarm, has a record for assault and credit card fraud. A shoe delivery leads to the Hotel Daniel, where Marley has paid cash for afternoon meetings with Tremont for a year and a half. Tremont’s girlfriend, Linda Ziman, backs his alibi. A friend says Marley would never have given up her status by divorcing, and Marley claims Greg secretly picked up men.
Tremont’s print is on the alarm pad’s deactivate button, and a search of his home turns up the missing hard drive, wiped clean. He says Marley gave him the drive to repair the day before the murder, and she backs him, but the monitoring company’s records show the alarm was armed and disarmed that Sunday night. Confronted with the hotel bills, Ziman drops the alibi, and Tremont is arrested.
The Trial
Over Southerlyn’s request for remand, the judge sets bail at $1 million, which Marley posts. Facing a hindering-prosecution charge, she takes a deal and tells the grand jury that Tremont confessed and acted alone. At trial, defense attorney Aaron Solomon hints that the missing sheets hid evidence of Greg’s secret sex life. Then Marley is found dead of carbon monoxide from a heating system Tremont installed. With no proof that he caused her absence, the judge bars her grand jury testimony and dismisses the charges, leaving Tremont unable to be retried for Greg’s death.
CSU finds a loosened heater connection with a drop of Tremont’s blood less than a week old, and the medical examiner rules Marley’s death a homicide. At Tremont’s trial for her murder, McCoy may say only that she was to testify against him in a serious criminal matter. The defense attacks the dating of the blood and calls Tremont’s new girlfriend, bartender Tina, as his alibi. On cross, she admits Tremont said Marley ruined his life and that the scheme had been her idea from the start. Ruling that the defense opened the door, the judge admits Marley’s grand jury testimony.
Spoiler, the ending: The verdict is not read on screen, but the jury returns quickly, and McCoy acknowledges the result could still be reversed on appeal. The prosecutors reflect that the case came down to sex and money.
Why it stands out
- The first prosecution collapses mid-trial when its star witness dies, and the dismissal means the defendant cannot be tried again for the original murder.
- A dead witness’s grand jury testimony, first ruled inadmissible, comes in after the defense’s own alibi witness opens the door on cross-examination.