Melting Pot (Season 17, Episode 15)
Premise: An actress-director found hanged in her office was knocked unconscious first, and the case pits a Muslim sound mixer who hated her film against an undocumented laborer who admits a struggle with her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 15
- 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
- Adam Trese as Carl Easton, Reza Salazar as Julio Rodriguez, Sanjit De Silva as Ali Mohammed, Cara Buono as Attorney Shannon, Sean Mahan as Jonas Faulkner
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode is inspired by the November 2006 death of actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, found hanged in her Manhattan office; a 19-year-old construction worker from Ecuador later confessed to attacking her and faking her suicide.
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Richard Sweren
Summary
The Investigation
“Melting Pot” opens with actress and director Erin Garrett found hanged in the apartment she rented as a writing office. Her husband, Jonas Faulkner, insists she would never have taken her own life, pointing to their two small children. Dr. Rodgers finds a skull fracture and bleeding that show she was unconscious before the noose, a murder staged as suicide. A hotel bill Faulkner paid turns out to be for his half-sister, who reveals that Erin’s short film about the sexual repression of Muslim women had been accepted by a festival.
Every copy sent to the festival was unwatchable, and a police technician finds the damage was deliberate. Sound mixer Ali Mohammed bristles at questions about the film and has no solid alibi. But plaster dust on Erin’s sweater and on the strap points to a renovation upstairs. Contractor Carl Easton says no one complained, while a neighbor recalls Erin questioning a young Latino worker about the water shutoff. A matching strap turns up in the bag of Julio Rodriguez, an undocumented Colombian laborer, who admits he grabbed Erin when she threatened to call the police and that she fell and struck her head, but denies hanging her.
The Trial
Julio is charged with murder, and his lawyer, Shannon, raises duress, citing the family in Colombia that lives on his wages, an argument Rubirosa, whose immigrant father once emptied bedpans despite a foreign medical license, finds more moving than McCoy does. At a hearing Julio says he saw a man heading to Erin’s floor. McCoy berates Van Buren over the interrogation. Ali’s fingerprints turn up in the stairwell and a foreman places him in the building, so he is charged too, until Judge Delahunt orders McCoy to pick one theory. Ali, convinced an American jury will convict a Muslim, tries to plead guilty while denying the crime, and McCoy will not accept it.
Rubirosa learns Easton’s firm earns at least $1 million a year from undocumented labor and that he was at the site that morning. Julio, protecting two cousins on Easton’s crews, will not implicate him, and Easton evades questions before a grand jury. At McCoy’s urging, immigration agents raid the company, putting the cousins in federal custody. Julio then says he left Erin on the floor of her apartment with Easton, who later told him the problem was handled and threatened to fire every Latino worker if he talked.
Spoiler, the ending: McCoy offers Easton 15 years to life, warning of 40 to life and the loss of his homes if a jury convicts; the episode does not show his answer. Ali is bound for Pakistan, Julio for Colombia, and Easton Construction has filed for dissolution.
Why it stands out
- The victim’s real-life counterpart, Adrienne Shelly, had guest starred on the series in the Season 10 episode “High & Low.”
- McCoy prosecutes two men for the same murder on inconsistent theories until a judge gives him 48 hours to choose one.
- To free a frightened witness to talk, McCoy pushes for an immigration raid on the contractor’s job sites, a call Rubirosa refuses to make herself.