Invaders (Season 16, Episode 22)
Premise: Two home invaders armed with counterfeit DEA badges wipe out the family of the man who made the badges, and the hunt for them costs ADA Alexandra Borgia her life.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 22
- 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
- Ritchie Coster as DEA Agent Kevin Almonte, Bruce MacVittie as Frank Andreas, Lynn Cohen as Judge Elizabeth Mizener, Daniel Benzali as Judge Wade Bookman, Jon Shaver as special prosecutor Brandon Gregory
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & David Wilcox
Summary
The Investigation
“Invaders” opens with a home invasion that leaves four people dead: Danielle Andreas, two children and their grandmother are found bound with duct tape and suffocated, with no sign of robbery. The super says Danielle’s estranged husband, Frank, phoned in a panic, and he saw two men leaving. After a raid on Andreas’s souvenir shop, Borgia released him when he admitted selling counterfeit DEA badges to two men she ties to a triple murder at a Dyckman Street drug house.
Reached through his lawyer, Andreas names the buyers only as Ricky and Vincent, says he copied a photo of a real DEA badge, and notes that Danielle’s engagement ring is gone. Then Borgia, stonewalled by the DEA, misses two hearings; her apartment shows a violent struggle, and her case files have been searched. Andreas hints she was crooked, and Van Buren finds an $8,000 cash deposit in her account dated the day before his release. A bank teller, Ernie Hencken, admits looking up her account as a favor to DEA Agent Kevin Almonte, who had arrested his brother.
Almonte denies it; arrested for computer trespass, he will not talk. Borgia’s body is found in a stolen car dumped near the Dyckman Marina; badly beaten and gagged, she choked to death.
The Trial
Lacking evidence against Almonte, McCoy has Andreas give a grand jury invented testimony that Ricky and Vincent named a DEA agent called Kevin, with Almonte’s DEA number, as their tipster, and promises him no perjury charge. Citing 1970s appellate precedent, People v. Rao, McCoy wins Branch’s reluctant approval, though Branch bristles when McCoy enlists a willing judge, Wade Bookman. Fontana’s lead on the stolen ring brings a raid that misses the killers by hours, but their prints identify them as Ricky Robinson and Vincent McCluskey (called Mulkowsky in the episode).
Almonte is arraigned on three counts of first-degree murder for the Dyckman Street killings and remanded, but he rejects a plea to first-degree robbery in exchange for his partners. Given a jailhouse cell phone he believes is safe, he tells Ricky to deal with the informant. Supervising Judge Elizabeth Mizener calls the scheme entrapment, shuts it down and orders Almonte released, and McCoy declines to hold him on the trespass count. Police tail Almonte, who leaves home armed and is shot dead by his partners; officers then catch Ricky and Vincent.
Spoiler, the ending: The prosecutors argue over having used Almonte as bait. At the arraignment of Robinson and McCluskey on nine counts of first-degree murder, both plead not guilty, and Brandon Gregory of the state attorney general’s office arrives with the governor’s order naming him special prosecutor because of McCoy’s tactics. McCoy is removed from the case, and no verdict is shown.
Why it stands out
- ADA Alexandra Borgia is abducted and killed in the season finale; Annie Parisse had quit late in the season, asking to be released from her contract.
- Dennis Farina’s departure from the cast was announced less than two weeks after the episode aired, making it his final appearance as Det. Joe Fontana.
- McCoy builds a fictitious murder indictment on scripted grand jury testimony and is taken off the case by a special prosecutor appointed by the governor.