Magnet (Season 16, Episode 14)
Premise: A gifted scholarship student at a Manhattan magnet school is strangled with a cello bow, and the wealthy classmate charged with killing him claims his attention deficit medication made him do it.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 14
- 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
- Kathleen Turner as defense attorney Rebecca Shane, Jaime McAdams as Greg Loomis, John Terry as Sherman Loomis, Felix Solis as Mr. Garcia, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Adam Bernstein
- Writers
- David Black
Summary
The Investigation
“Magnet” opens with the strangling of Alex Garcia, 18, who is found in a soundproof music room at Foster, a magnet school for math and science. The M.E. believes a cello bow served as a garrote, and the broken bow turns up in a trash can wrapped in a sweatshirt. Alex, a Dominican student from Spanish Harlem headed to Princeton on a full scholarship, was carrying $300 and an expensive watch, which his father says he earned by tutoring.
The detectives rule out a former friend and the resentful ex-boyfriend of Alex’s girlfriend, then recover data from Alex’s phone showing he sold test answers to 16 classmates. His girlfriend points to Greg Loomis, a wealthy student pushed out of two private schools, whom Alex had cut off in a dispute over a biology midterm. Greg’s thumbprint is on the bow, and when police track his family to their Long Island house, he has cut his wrists.
The Trial
Defense attorney Rebecca Shane claims involuntary intoxication from Centinall, a stimulant Greg took for attention deficit disorder, and offers a manslaughter plea with probation; McCoy wants 20 years to life. Dr. Olivet believes Greg was of sound mind but admits little is known about how such drugs affect young brains. McCoy gets the defense expert to concede that only a tiny share of users turn violent, confronts Greg’s father with emails promising a Porsche for an Ivy League admission, and questions Greg about earlier outbursts at his old schools.
Alex’s father brings forward Freddie Colon, a former friend of Alex, who says Greg sold his pills instead of taking them, while Shane’s investigators warn other students against helping prosecutors. Freddie repeats his account on the stand, but Shane impeaches him with months of building surveillance video that never shows him, and Freddie admits that Mr. Garcia put him up to the story.
Spoiler, the ending: A last round of plea talks fails, and after closing arguments the jury convicts Greg of second-degree murder. Shane then invites McCoy to join her firm, and he declines.
Why it stands out
- Kathleen Turner guest stars as Rebecca Shane, a high-priced defense attorney familiar from television.
- The defense blames the killing on Centinall, a stimulant prescribed for attention deficit disorder, rather than on Greg.
- The victim’s father coaches a witness to lie, and the false testimony undermines the prosecution’s case.