Release (Season 17, Episode 8)
Premise: The bludgeoning of a wealthy heir on a racy party-video bus leads to a college student who says she was fending off a second assault, and McCoy charges the man who first raped her with felony murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 8
- 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
- Tim Peper as Chris Drake, Kim Shaw as Nicole Flynn, Adam Kaufman as Attorney Swain, Rebecca Watson as Roberta Perkins, Alexandra Daddario as Samantha Beresford
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Rick Eid & Nicholas Wootton
Summary
The Investigation
“Release” opens at a party thrown by the racy video company Babes Being Bad, where women heading onto the party bus find heir Hudson Moore, 26, beaten to death with a champagne bottle. Founder Chris Drake says no one was thrown out, and his bodyguard, Deon, vouches for him. Moore’s brother, Bryce, had left an angry message over an embarrassing documentary, and ex-girlfriend Samantha Beresford says Drake, whom she dated briefly, kept pursuing her and that Moore recently flirted with a young woman at a club. Producer Richard “The Bomb” Condell, caught with Moore’s $100,000 watch, says he saw Moore and Drake outside the bus with a blonde.
Security video shows Drake leading a young woman onto the bus at 10:45 and later chatting with Moore before Moore boards; neither Moore nor the woman is seen leaving. Drake asks for a lawyer. A bartender recalls a blonde named Nicole who paid her $50 to get near Drake, and the company’s release forms turn up several Nicoles. Prints from a business card one of them hands the detectives, along with Beresford’s identification, point to Nicole Flynn, a Queens College student working two jobs, and she is arrested for murder.
The Trial
Flynn tells the prosecutors that Drake had filmed her naked on spring break in Panama City and demanded $10,000 or sex for the tape. On the bus, she says, he raped her despite her telling him to stop, then ordered her to stay another hour; Moore came in, said Drake had approved, and she hit him with the bottle when he undid his pants. Drake invokes the Fifth, but an FBI speech analyst reading the silent video finds he offered her to Moore as an early birthday present. McCoy charges Drake with rape and felony murder, and the judge leaves the theory to the jury.
Defense attorney Swain plays the spring-break video over a rape-shield objection, and Drake produces a sexual consent form Flynn signed that night. He says the Kobe Bryant case led him to start using the forms, but McCoy finds 73 signed before Bryant’s arrest. Roberta Perkins testifies that her daughter, Cheryl, who signed one of Drake’s forms at 16, told her Drake raped her after demanding sex for a tape; Cheryl later took her own life. Drake turns down a plea to rape with five to 15 years.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Drake of both rape and felony murder. Flynn’s own case is not resolved on screen. Afterward, the prosecutors question whether the jurors were punishing Drake for Flynn or for the girl who died, and whether it matters.
Why it stands out
- McCoy uses the felony murder rule to charge a rapist with a killing committed by the woman he raped.
- McCoy undercuts Drake’s signed sexual consent form by finding 73 such forms dated before the arrest Drake says inspired them.
- Alexandra Daddario appears as socialite Samantha Beresford.