All in the Family (Season 15, Episode 9)
Premise: A diamond dealer cooperating with federal prosecutors is gunned down on a crowded sidewalk, and the hit leads from Russian mobsters to his wife, who was trapped in a marriage she could not leave.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 9
- 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
- Mercedes Ruehl as Zina Rybakov, Ileen Getz as defense attorney Sydelle Greenblatt, Misha Kuznetsov as Andropov, Thom Rivera as Paolo Clemente, David Anzuelo as Stefano Granados
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- William N. Fordes
Summary
The Investigation
“All in the Family” begins with gunfire on a crowded Manhattan sidewalk that kills Roman Rybakov, a diamond merchant from Queens, and wounds a restaurant dishwasher, Ernesto Borges. Twenty-seven witnesses agree on little beyond four shots. Diamonds worth roughly $250,000 are missing from Rybakov’s store, and although he told his friends the Donners he was off to the dentist, he had no appointment.
Rybakov belonged to the Bukharan Jewish community in Queens and was known to be crooked. His lawyer, Svi Isaacson, cites privilege but steps out, leaving a federal prosecutor’s card in view: Rybakov had been cooperating with Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Warner against a diamond-smuggling ring run by Russian mobster Andropov, after anonymous tips exposed him. Fingerprints reveal that Borges is Stefano Granados, a contract killer, and the detectives catch him boarding a private flight to Bogotá.
Phone records lead the prosecutors to divorce lawyer Mark Edleburg, who represents Rybakov’s wife, Zina. The tips to Warner came from a payphone at her mikvah, and she knew the store safe’s combination. Once his family leaves Nicaragua, Granados names the second gunman, Paolo Clemente, who says Andropov hired him and told him to shoot Granados too. Andropov, seeking a deal, says Zina told his associate Egan Ludovic, now in Russia, about her husband’s cooperation and his schedule, and paid $50,000 for the killing. Calls from the mikvah to his club and large cash withdrawals support him, and Zina is charged.
The Trial
Defense attorney Sydelle Greenblatt and a rabbi explain that Zina needed a get, a religious divorce that only a husband can grant; Rybakov refused it, which would have left her unable to remarry or keep her children within her community unless she became a widow. At trial Clemente describes the shooting and Andropov repeats that Zina paid him, but on cross he allows that his gang might have killed the informant without being paid.
Zina testifies that she reported her husband to protect their four children, that he refused her a get, and that she sold the missing diamonds and gave $50,000 to the rabbinical court in hopes it would pressure him. She denies paying the Russians, and the rabbi’s synagogue confirms receiving her donation, undercutting Andropov’s account.
Spoiler, the ending: Branch worries that the case now looks like the persecution of a widow, and McCoy withdraws all charges after jeopardy has attached, so Zina can never be retried. The prosecutors reflect that she caused a killing without a provable crime, and that some in her community may raise a glass to her.
Why it stands out
- The wounded “bystander” at the scene is actually one of the hit men, shot by his partner on the mob’s orders to leave no loose ends.
- The case turns on the get, the Orthodox Jewish divorce that only a husband can grant, without which a refused wife remains an agunah.
- McCoy drops the charges mid-trial at Branch’s urging, knowing that jeopardy has attached and the defendant can never be retried.