Consultation (Season 3, Episode 10)
Premise: A young Nigerian woman dies carrying heroin in her stomach, and the people who sent her include a tribal chief with diplomatic protection.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 10
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Roscoe Lee Browne as Sir Idris Balewa, Wendell Pierce as Chief Ola-Gimju Nwaka, Andrew Robinson as Phillip Marietta, Seth Gilliam as Babatunde Amoda, Afemo Omilami as Michael Kano
- Director
- James Hayman
- Writers
- Matt Kiene & Joe Reinkemeyer
Summary
The Investigation
“Consultation” opens with a cab driver taking a young Nigerian woman from the airport toward Harlem when she collapses in the back seat. Kelani Amoda, 20 and pregnant, dies in the emergency room along with her baby. The medical examiner finds 60 heroin-filled condoms in her stomach; one has burst. Her papers show a job waiting at Nigerian Petroleum Distribution in Brooklyn, and her husband, Babatunde, a delivery man, had no idea she was coming.
Briscoe and Logan learn that Kelani’s visa was rushed through with a letter from Chief Ola-Gimju Nwaka, a Yoruba chief with two dropped grand larceny arrests, and that company executive Phillip Marietta sponsored her job. A company janitor, Fabian Ayinde, admits he is a swallower himself and recruited Kelani; he names Marietta, who is arrested. Fingerprints in the Harlem hotel room where the drugs were to be collected belong to Michael Kano, a parolee who drives for Nwaka. When the detectives arrest Nwaka, he claims immunity as Nigeria’s trade consul.
The Trial
Stone meets Sir Idris Balewa, a legal attaché from the Nigerian Embassy, who calls Nwaka a disgrace and offers help. Marietta’s company bails Fabian out, then fires him, and he is deported to Nigeria. Balewa gets Kano to testify by proposing he be sent home for trial too. Nwaka and Marietta are charged with narcotics conspiracy and felony murder; the judge sets $1 million bail for each and takes their passports. Marietta takes a 15-year deal and testifies that the smuggling began with diamonds and moved to heroin, with Nwaka recruiting couriers. Kano, also promised 15 years, says he collected the drugs for Nwaka.
The defense attacks both witnesses’ credibility. Babatunde praises his chief on the stand, then produces a late-arriving letter from Kelani saying Nwaka told her to follow Fabian’s instructions, the link Stone needed.
Spoiler, the ending: Nwaka never returns to court. He flies to Lagos on a new diplomatic passport issued by the embassy with Balewa’s signature. Balewa tells Stone that the testimony gathered in New York will now help convict the chief at home, where he says Nwaka should pay with his life.
Why it stands out
- The case turns on consular immunity under the Vienna Convention, which protects Nwaka from all but grave crimes.
- The DA’s office’s apparent ally, the Nigerian Embassy’s attaché, ends up spiriting the defendant out of the country.
- The episode was later remade for Law & Order: UK as “Love and Loss.”