In Vino Veritas (Season 17, Episode 7)
Premise: A fading sitcom actor arrested for drunk driving in bloodstained clothes rants against Jews, and the trail leads to a murdered Jewish producer and the actor’s 14-year-old son.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 7
- 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
- Chevy Chase as Mitch Carroll, Jaymie Dornan as John Carroll, Jennifer Esposito as defense attorney Justine Bailey, Todd Gearhart as Attorney Rosenthal, Terri Garber as Mrs. Carroll
- Ripped from the headlines
- The story draws on Mel Gibson’s July 2006 arrest for drunk driving in Malibu, California, during which he made antisemitic remarks to the arresting officer.
- Director
- Tim Hunter
- Writers
- David Wilcox
Summary
The Investigation
“In Vino Veritas” begins with a drunk-driving arrest: Mitch Carroll, a former sitcom star, runs a red light downtown wearing someone else’s blood, blows a .13 and hurls antisemitic insults at Cassady in the interview room. Worried about publicity, a police inspector has Cassady write a second, cleaned-up report while the original is locked away. CSU finds traces of blood in Carroll’s trunk and a clue pointing to a Soho bar, where a bartender says he left alone to check on his 14-year-old son, John. Carroll says he mixed wine with a sleeping pill and remembers nothing.
Sanitation workers find television producer Danielle Hertzberg, shot once in the neck and dumped a few blocks from where Carroll’s phone hit a cell tower. She had refused to cast him in her new pilot. His former co-star Bobby Gold says Carroll aimed an antisemitic slur at him at the wrap party after their show, 25 to Life, was canceled, and that Hertzberg then warned the industry about Carroll. Carroll admits finding her dead and moving the body in a panic. A recently fired 9mm in his apartment and Hertzberg’s blood on John’s sneakers lead John to confess that he used his father’s gun and that his father told him to claim he was home.
The Trial
John is charged with murder with a hate crime enhancement, and his father with hindering prosecution and evidence tampering. John’s lawyer, Justine Bailey, seeks to move the case to Family Court, arguing that the father’s bigotry amounted to abuse. The boy’s mother says Carroll rewarded John for breaking a Jewish teammate’s jaw, and records show father and son practiced at a gun range. A judge orders John tried as an adult, and John then tells McCoy that his father said he wanted Hertzberg dead. Carroll is arrested for murder just after a televised apology.
The judge refuses to suppress Carroll’s rant, to step aside because his own wife is Jewish or to move the trial. Defense attorney Rosenthal uses the two police reports to suggest Cassady invented the slurs, and John recants on the stand. McCoy then offers Carroll a deal that would cut a year from John’s sentence for every year Carroll agrees to serve. Carroll declines, and John, brought in to see him, accuses his father of wanting the killing and agrees to testify again.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Mitch Carroll guilty of second-degree murder. John’s sentence is not shown. Afterward, the prosecutors note that sometimes the blame lies with the tree rather than the apple and plan a round of drinks.
Why it stands out
- Chevy Chase guest stars as Mitch Carroll, a washed-up sitcom actor.
- The defense turns a second, sanitized police report, written to keep the actor’s slurs out of the press, against the arresting detective.
- McCoy offers the father a year off his son’s sentence for every year he agrees to serve himself.