Seed (Season 5, Episode 15)
Premise: A woman shot in a bank leads detectives to a fertility doctor who faked pregnancies and secretly fathered dozens of his patients’ babies.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 15
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- David Margulies as Dr. Jordan Delbert, Mark Blum as Michael Aronson, Kristin Griffith as Clara Brock
- Ripped from the headlines
- Based on the case of Cecil Jacobson, a fertility doctor convicted of fraud in 1992 who used his own sperm on patients and gave hormone shots that produced false pregnancies.
- Director
- Don Scardino
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin & Janis Diamond
Summary
The Investigation
“Seed” opens with Susan Parker storming into the bank where her estranged husband, Brandon, is a vice president, shouting that he killed her baby. She fires a .38, and a security guard shoots her dead. Van Buren wants to know what she meant, and Brandon explains that she had a miscarriage after years of treatment with fertility specialist Dr. Jordan Delbert (called Gilbert in the episode).
The medical examiner finds bruises that fit Brandon’s story that she attacked him and he pushed her away. She was also never pregnant, even though Delbert told the couple she was. A subpoena limited to patients who miscarried leads Briscoe and Logan to women inseminated with sperm from the same donor, number 2133x. They count 42 such patients, though Delbert promised each donor would be used no more than four times.
Because the subpoena did not cover insemination records, a judge rules the discovery unusable. Kincaid swears an affidavit walling herself off, and McCoy pursues the doctor on his own. Delbert’s books show he stopped paying for donors and for HIV testing of sperm. Blood tests on 31 babies are all HIV-negative, but 25 carry the cystic fibrosis gene, pointing to a single donor, and the prosecutors conclude it is Delbert himself.
The Trial
Using his own sperm is not a crime unless a patient was deceived about the source. Clara Brock and her husband believed his sperm was used, but they refuse to cooperate, and Judge Stein quashes a subpoena for Delbert’s blood. McCoy has Kincaid appointed guardian for the Brocks’ son in family court to seek child support, which requires a paternity test. Delbert stipulates that he is the father and is arrested for larceny by false promise.
A judge warns that a fraud trial will collapse without the victims, and the Brocks refuse even after Kincaid wins a closed courtroom and sealed records. Their referring doctor reveals they had their son hoping his bone marrow could save their daughter, Debra, who died of leukemia at eight. McCoy threatens Delbert with second-degree murder, arguing that substituting his sperm lowered the chance of a match, but defense lawyer Michael Aronson points out that McCoy has no witnesses.
Spoiler, the ending: With no victim willing to testify, the prosecutors drop the case for now. Delbert walks free after telling McCoy that he, not God, makes babies.
Why it stands out
- The case of fertility doctor Cecil Jacobson formed the basis of this episode.
- Kincaid puts up an ethical “Chinese wall” so McCoy can rediscover evidence a judge ruled she had obtained improperly.
- Blocked in criminal court, McCoy turns to family court, where a paternity suit filed for the baby forces Delbert to admit he is the father.