Quit Claim (Season 18, Episode 7)
Premise: A hit-and-run that kills a visiting mother and daughter uncovers a scheme to cheat struggling homeowners out of their houses, and a title closer who keeps slipping out of the prosecutors’ reach.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 18, Episode 7
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- January Jones as Kim Brody, Greg Keller as defense attorney Peter Berbatov, Daniel Jenkins as Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard Cassidy, Jim True-Frost as Dennis Langdon/Phil Newsom, Danny Mastrogiorgio as Nicky Fatone
- Director
- Jim McKay
- Writers
- William N. Fordes & David Wilcox
Summary
The Investigation
“Quit Claim” begins with a hit-and-run in Manhattan that kills Melanie Huelsman and her daughter Donna, tourists from Iowa. The stolen getaway car, wiped clean, holds $10,000 in new bills traced to Jerry and Margaret Conroy, who had slipped the seller $50,000 off the books to buy a foreclosed house cheaply. Their seller, Dennis Langdon, has been talking homeowners behind on sub-prime loans into signing quitclaim deeds, promising to fix their credit, then reselling their houses within days.
Many of the closings went through title agent Kim Brody, whose copy of Langdon’s license lets facial recognition identify him as Phil Newsom, an associate of mobster Nicky Fatone. Fresh bullet holes and an emptied cabinet at Fatone’s nearby cigar club suggest the car was fleeing a robbery of the scam money. Brody, who admits taking $3,000 tips from Langdon, helps stage a sting closing, but Langdon slips away, and her tip sends detectives to an empty Brooklyn restaurant. Meanwhile, Langdon, Fatone and three others are shot dead at the club, and behind it lies one of the robbers, Bobby Sinclair, with lipstick on his face. Brody is arrested.
The Trial
Facing only low-level charges over the tips, Brody is held as a material witness. Sinclair turns out to be a Florida jail escapee, and the prosecutors suspect Brody is Claire Tomalin, the paralegal who helped him break out. Her appointed lawyer, Peter Berbatov, appears in court wearing one of her socks, and police catch him collecting the stolen cash for her; he agrees to cooperate. Then Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Cassidy seizes Brody as a Patriot Act witness after she reports a supposed Arab money-laundering ring. McCoy has the two FBI agents arrested for kidnapping and trades their release for custody of Brody.
A judge starts the speedy-indictment clock from her first arrest, leaving less than two days. Cutter goes to the grand jury with a four-point partial print tying Brody to Tomalin, a match McCoy calls too weak to use. Brody testifies that Sinclair kidnapped her and kept her captive, and the grand jury votes no bill. Berbatov offers to swear that she confessed if his own charge goes away. Rubirosa refuses to take part, and in court Cutter withdraws his request to present the case again.
Spoiler, the ending: The charges are dismissed, and Brody goes back into federal custody. Florida then matches the print from Tomalin’s file to an unidentified woman who has been in a morgue for a year, and the real Kim Brody turns up as a Virginia mother of three, leaving the defendant’s true identity unknown.
Why it stands out
- McCoy breaks a standoff with the U.S. Attorney by having two FBI agents arrested for kidnapping and swapping them for the murder suspect.
- McCoy and Rubirosa each step away from Cutter over the case, McCoy over a thin fingerprint match and Rubirosa over a witness willing to lie.
- January Jones guest-stars as Kim Brody, a defendant whose real name is never established.