Collateral Damage (Season 22, Episode 18)
Premise: A young woman from a wealthy family dies from an infected brand after joining a women’s creativity group, and the case uncovers a cult that controls its members with their own confessions.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 18
- Detectives
- Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Nora Dale as Jocelyn Davis, Sadie Veach as Sienna Barton, Geneva Carr as Jenny Newhall, Jess Prichard as Zach Elfont, Kristopher Charles as Donnie Preston
- Ripped from the headlines
- The Lodestar group appears to draw on NXIVM, whose leader, Keith Raniere, was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in 2019, and whose secret women’s subgroup branded members and demanded damaging material from them as “collateral.”
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Pamela Wechsler
Summary
The Investigation
“Collateral Damage” begins with a young woman leaving a loving voicemail for her mother as someone comes into her room. She is later found rolled in a rug in a restaurant dumpster, with “Lodestar” burned into her skin and marks on her wrists; the medical examiner says an untreated infection from the brand caused fatal septic shock. A music-store guitar pick leads to her ex-boyfriend, street musician Ken Stinson, who names her as Ava Newhall and says she left him for a new circle of friends. Video near the bar shows a man trying to drag her into a car: Donnie Preston, the doorman in her parents’ building, hired by her mother, news anchor Jenny Newhall, to bring her home.
The Newhalls say Ava joined a group devoted to creativity that emptied her accounts until they froze her trust fund. At its loft, Sienna Barton signals for help and admits recruiting Ava, saying members are tied down for branding. A search finds a new rug bought by Jocelyn Davis, whose room holds the branding iron, bearing her prints and Ava’s DNA.
The Trial
Charged with assault and illegal disposal of a body, Davis is released without bail. Video confessions on her devices show each recruit surrendering a secret: Sienna’s theft from a shelter, and Ava’s knowledge of her mother’s affair with a colleague. Arguing that fear of exposure kept Ava from getting help, prosecutors upgrade the charge to felony murder based on kidnapping. Jenny admits the affair on the stand, and when the judge threatens a directed verdict, Sienna testifies, under threat of charges and then with immunity, that Davis used the confession to keep Ava in her room. She adds that the real leader is a man the women call Lodestar, who kept their money and had sex with them.
He is Zach Elfont, who explains away texts, GPS and bank records. Davis, groomed by him since age 16, first refuses to turn on him, then agrees through her lawyer to cooperate, but Elfont is beaten to death in his cell before she can testify, and the offer is withdrawn.
Spoiler, the ending: After her lawyer protests, Davis pleads guilty with an agreed sentence of 12 years in state prison. She apologizes to the Newhalls and says Elfont used every woman in the group.
Why it stands out
- The case’s key witness is also a participant: Sienna testifies only after prosecutors threaten to charge her for holding Ava down during the branding.
- The group’s hidden leader is killed in jail before he can be tried, leaving his lieutenant as the only defendant.