Charity Case (Season 17, Episode 12)
Premise: A producer is shot dead outside an ice cream parlor as he holds the baby he and his actress wife adopted from Africa, and the case uncovers what became of the real child.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 12
- Detectives
- Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Det. Nina Cassady (Milena Govich)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Jennifer Beals as Sofia Archer, Anna Chlumsky as Mary Calvin, Kola Ogundiran as Ephraim Mogae, Brian Avers as Marlon Cooper, Billy Burke as Attorney Farmer
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Nicholas Wootton
Summary
The Investigation
“Charity Case” opens with the shooting of producer Sean Archer outside an ice cream shop as he holds Christopher, the baby he and his wife, actress Sofia Archer, adopted from the African nation of Mamuno. Critics had called the adoption a publicity stunt. Sofia admits an open marriage, and writer John Brody, whose wife was sleeping with Sean, owns no gun and tests negative for gunshot residue.
The shell casing matches a pistol registered to civil rights lawyer Marlon Cooper, who branded Sofia a baby thief because she spent three days in Mamuno when its law requires a year. Cooper has an alibi, but he paid the Archers’ doorman $1,000 to call when the baby went out, and a prepaid phone tied to him was near the shooting. A limping man escapes when police come to Cooper’s apartment; travel charges identify him as Ephraim Mogae, the baby’s birth father.
Sofia admits she cut off Mogae after the adoption. Found injured through a cousin, Mogae says Cooper knew nothing of his plan to take his son home, and that when Sean shoved him, he cocked the gun to scare him and it fired.
The Trial
Mogae will plead to manslaughter for 15 years only if he can see the child first. Sofia refuses, but her assistant, Mary Calvin, brings the baby to a supervised visit, and Mogae says the boy is not his son. A court-ordered DNA test excludes Mogae and matches Lashonda Harris, Sofia’s jailed former assistant, who says Calvin arranged for Sofia to raise her baby. Sofia blames Calvin, who kept Christopher while Sofia spent six weeks at a California weight-loss retreat. Calvin says the baby died in Sofia’s care, and that Sofia paid her half a million dollars to bury him and find a substitute. Police dogs find his remains in a park, the ribs fractured, and Sofia is arrested.
Calvin testifies in return for a plea to hiding the body and hindering prosecution, and the defense brings out three emergency room visits by a child she once cared for. Sofia testifies that she adopted Christopher to help him and to draw attention to AIDS in Mamuno, but admits she lied to the press about raising him herself. Evidence from the first search of her home then surfaces: eight diet pills from the vacuum bag, four bearing the baby’s saliva, and a pharmacy record showing Sofia canceled his malaria medicine from California.
Spoiler, the ending: Cornered, Sofia insists her fame brought millions in aid to Mamuno, and the scene ends on a plea offer of second-degree manslaughter with 15 years; no verdict is shown. Over drinks afterward, Rubirosa says she hopes to have children of her own.
Why it stands out
- Jennifer Beals guest stars as actress Sofia Archer, with Anna Chlumsky as her assistant, Mary Calvin.
- The case turns when the confessed shooter, granted a supervised visit, says the baby he came to reclaim is not his son, and a court-ordered DNA test proves him right.
- McCoy asks for the DNA order under the Family Court Act, over the defense argument that the law does not allow proceedings meant to disprove a child’s parentage.