Kingmaker (Season 16, Episode 20)
Premise: An undercover narcotics detective is executed after a newspaper column reveals she is a cop, and the leak traces back to a congressman’s combative chief of staff.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 20
- 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
- Garret Dillahunt as Eric Lund, David Forsyth as Congressman Jonathan Prescott, Dylan Baker as defense attorney Sanford Rems, John McMartin as Ron Grayson, Sam Freed as Tom Baker
- Director
- Don Scardino
- Writers
- David Slack
Summary
The Investigation
“Kingmaker” begins with the murder of an undercover detective, whose body is dropped from a West 53rd Street roof onto a patrol car lured there by a fake 911 call. Lt. Sullivan identifies her as Det. Dana Baker, who spent a year inside an Albanian heroin ring. Ring figure Kreshnik Pernaska points to Jason Higgs, who saw Ratko Petrovich, a dealer she had arranged to meet, shoot Baker in a Brooklyn warehouse after calling her a cop.
Petrovich is wounded and caught in a Queens raid. He says Baker’s job was no secret: a Veronica Drake column about her father, Tom Baker, whose book brands Congressman Jonathan Prescott and two colleagues pro-criminal, mentioned that his daughter is NYPD. Drake, who thought Dana worked a desk, will not name her source. Tom Baker blames Prescott’s chief of staff, Eric Lund, who had threatened his career.
Lund denies contacting Drake, but records show he called TV anchor Ron Grayson two days before the column ran, and Grayson admits Lund pitched him the same item. A payroll clerk, George Mills, says a caller posing as a Homeland Security official learned that Baker was a narcotics detective, along with a warning that many work undercover; the call came from Lund’s office. McCoy wants an indictment first, but after Lund visits to warn him off, McCoy has him arrested at a black-tie gala.
The Trial
Charged with second-degree manslaughter, Lund gets $10,000 bail and rejects a plea to five years. At trial Mills recognizes Lund’s voice, and Petrovich testifies that he shot Baker once the column showed she was police. Defense attorney Sanford Rems produces an e-mail, apparently from Drake to Grayson, crediting a friend of Tom Baker with the tip a day before Lund’s calls, and accuses the DA of hiding Brady material. A printout turns up in the DA’s own evidence boxes.
Judge Hugo Bright holds a hearing on prosecutorial misconduct. Tom Baker admits praising Dana’s police work to his agent and publisher after his book launch, and an analyst finds signs that Grayson’s hard drive was switched on while in evidence. Branch urges McCoy to drop the case. Fontana and Green then learn that trial-prep assistant Janine Lesko, whose boyfriend once worked for Lund, was coached by an expert to alter the drive. McCoy threatens Lund with perjury, conspiracy and obstruction counts and invites him to implicate Prescott; Lund refuses.
Spoiler, the ending: Prescott visits McCoy and promises that Lund will plead guilty to leaking Baker’s identity and tampering with evidence for 15 years, if McCoy stops digging into the congressman. McCoy agrees, so the case ends in a plea, not a verdict. Prescott disowns Lund on television and hires a new consultant.
Why it stands out
- Garret Dillahunt guest stars as political operative Eric Lund, with Dylan Baker as his defense attorney, Sanford Rems.
- A planted e-mail puts McCoy himself on the defensive at a prosecutorial-misconduct hearing, until the tampering is traced to a trial-prep assistant reviewing evidence for the DA’s office.
- Congressman Prescott personally brokers his aide’s 15-year plea in exchange for McCoy ending any inquiry into him.