Dining Out (Season 15, Episode 18)
Premise: A TV executive is strangled in a private park after a charity gala, and suspicion moves from the twins who run the charity to her husband and finally to the celebrity chef she was sleeping with.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 18
- Detectives
- Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Kamar de los Reyes as Aberto Moretti, Wendie Malick as Ms. Dressler, Susan Wands as Sara Jobson, Jason Sklar as Barry Finneran, Randy Sklar as Max Finneran
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Davey Holmes
Summary
The Investigation
“Dining Out” starts in Manhattan’s last private park, where a man and his grandson find the strangled body of Lisa Taylor, head of programming at Cuisine TV, still wearing diamond earrings and a dress stained with filet mignon. She had organized a tsunami benefit for the Falls Foundation that night and had accused the twins who run it, Max and Barry Finneran, of padding expenses. State regulators say the charity took in $4.6 million and gave away $30,000. Its office is set on fire, though the files survive, but DNA from under Taylor’s nails clears the twins, who are indicted for grand larceny instead.
Her husband, Steve Taylor, a steakhouse chef, lied about never leaving work; an ATM photo and his dealer place him uptown buying cocaine. Lisa Taylor’s hotel charges and an email lead to her lover, Aberto Moretti, a celebrity chef with a Cuisine TV show, who says the affair was ongoing and denies being at the park. His driver, however, dropped him across the street. A footprint mold points to $6,000 custom boots that Moretti rushed to have resoled, the detectives search the shoemaker’s dumpster for the old soles, and Moretti is arrested on his set.
The Trial
An arraignment judge who admires Moretti’s osso buco sets bail at $1 million. Defense attorney Dressler argues that Moretti’s skin under the victim’s nails came from rough consensual sex. His show’s producer reveals that Taylor had decided to cancel his low-rated program days before she died. At trial a medical examiner demonstrates how a woman being strangled would scratch her attacker’s thumb and neck, just where Moretti was marked.
A publisher then reports that a juror is shopping a book proclaiming Moretti’s innocence. She is Sara Jobson, a former food critic who wrote adoring pieces about him and hid them during jury selection; the judge removes her, and the remaining jurors are cleared. The prosecutors notice she knew of an unannounced Moretti restaurant, and payphone calls from near his home lead her to admit he approached her in a cab and promised help with her book if he stayed free. The judge lets her testify, and Dressler paints her as a scorned fan, but her remark about a “snake” of a business partner leads to Garret Carter, who reveals a food-products deal worth millions that hinged on Moretti’s show.
Spoiler, the ending: Faced with Carter’s testimony, Moretti accepts a plea to first-degree manslaughter. He admits that when Taylor told him in the park that she was canceling his show, he hit her and then choked her to stop her screaming.
Why it stands out
- Comedians Jason and Randy Sklar, who are identical twins, play the Finneran brothers, and the detectives note that DNA alone could not tell the two apart.
- The trial nearly collapses when a juror is caught shopping a book about the case, and her secret contact with the defendant becomes evidence of his consciousness of guilt.