Bright Lights (Season 25, Episode 15)
Premise: A celebrated fashion designer is shot dead days after discovering her husband has been living off her money under an invented name, and Price uses a heavy-handed threat to force a reluctant actress to place the gun in his hand.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 25, Episode 15
- Detectives
- Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), Det. Theo Walker (David Ajala)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Tommy Dewey as Tate Harris, Susan Misner as defense attorney Allison Whitt, James Austin Kerr as Dutch Wilmont, Isabella Ward as Grace Burke, Elsa Mollien as Bella Ross
- Director
- Peter Stebbings
- Writers
- Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Bright Lights” opens as designer Bella Ross, 53, names a new creative director for her fashion line at a gala. The next morning she is shot twice in the chest during a walk, with her jewelry and phone left behind. Her husband, Tate Harris, says he was home sick in Pound Ridge and that they had an open marriage. An employee passed over for the top job admits arguing with Bella at the party, and a photographer who spent the night at her apartment is cleared by building video.
Bella had texted her lawyer, Ellis Matz, that she wanted to destroy “Trey,” Tate’s nickname. Matz says Bella recently learned Tate was a fraud; he was born Johnny O’Malley in Worcester, Massachusetts. A neighbor’s cameras show Tate never left by his front door, but he bought a burner phone, and a car service picked up a cash-paying customer at a secluded Pound Ridge corner, drove him to within five blocks of the shooting and took him back afterward. Tate is arrested.
An anonymous tip leads to a 9mm gun registered to film producer Dutch Wilmont, who says he has not touched it in years; Tate attended a party at his apartment four days before the murder. The tip came from near defense attorney Allison Whitt’s home, but her role cannot be proved.
The Trial
Whitt mocks the case as thin, and the judge rebukes her before remanding Tate. An accountant testifies that Bella lent Tate millions and paid about $6.5 million a year for their lifestyle while he contributed nothing, and a friend says Bella planned to divorce him after finding his business was a sham. Under cross-examination, Wilmont admits he slept with Bella once; he was in Miami at the time of the murder, but Whitt makes him look like an alternate suspect.
Pressed to tie the gun to Tate, detectives go back to the party guests, who reveal that the party involved sex and drugs and that actress Grace Burke went into Wilmont’s bedroom with Tate, but she refuses to testify because her husband, director Arthur Burke, does not know. Price threatens her with sex trafficking charges for bringing friends and drugs to court Wilmont’s favor, and inside the office he is accused of exploiting her to further his career. Grace testifies that Tate left the bedroom closet holding something wrapped in a T-shirt and, when she teased him, said he was stealing it. Whitt draws out the drinking, the drugs and the deal, and Grace erupts in court and is held in contempt.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Tate of second-degree murder. The prosecutors are left feeling they reached the right result by the wrong means.
Why it stands out
- Price threatens a reluctant witness with sex trafficking charges he is told do not fit the facts, and the deal not to charge her is put to the jury.
- At the arraignment the judge rebukes the defense attorney for likening the case to a thin runway model, a quip the press then repeats.