Corruption (Season 7, Episode 5)
Premise: A veteran detective kills a drug dealer during a buy-and-bust, and Curtis’s doubts expose a payoff scheme that ends with Briscoe accused of stealing evidence.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 7, Episode 5
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Kevin Conway as Lieutenant John Flynn, Caroline Kava as Betty Abrams, Josef Sommer as Judge Lawrence Hellman, Jeff Williams as Detective Kenny Edwards, Alexandra Loria as Marilyn Manning
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: Gardner Stern
Summary
The Investigation
“Corruption” opens on an anti-drug task force buy where Detective John Flynn, Briscoe’s former colleague, shoots dealer Ruben Morales, saying he reached for a gun. Curtis tells Internal Affairs he saw movement but no weapon. He learns Morales had been jailed on a cocaine charge a week earlier, and Morales’s brother Richie says Ruben had secretly agreed to give up his boss, Hector Garcia, in return for relocation.
Curtis finds that Flynn arrested Garcia five years earlier and that the case fell apart when the cocaine vanished from the 116th Precinct’s property room. Curtis’s suspicions strain his partnership with Briscoe, and Flynn warns both detectives to stop digging. The informant Two-Tone says Flynn swapped the planned target for Morales at the last minute, and Flynn’s partner, Kenny Edwards, admits Flynn paid him $200 a week, cash he saved in a coffee can.
The Trial
Ross arrests Flynn for murder. A lingerie catalog in his locker leads her to his girlfriend, Marilyn Manning, who says Garcia visited the condo Flynn bought her and that Flynn kept cash in a floor safe that bears his prints. McCoy offers to spare Flynn a capital prosecution if he testifies against Garcia, who has fled to Mexico, but Flynn refuses. Judge Hellman, head of a commission on police corruption, then gives Flynn two to six years, lifetime probation and loss of his pension for his testimony, and Flynn tells the commission Briscoe stole the Garcia evidence and split the drugs with him.
Briscoe testifies that he signed in that day and went home, where he slept off a night of drinking. A lawyer signals to Ross that a dead patrolman, Dave Spence, confessed to the theft, but the privilege bars its use. Officer Betty Abrams, Briscoe’s former lover, testifies she was with him that day, and Hellman humiliates her over her affairs. Briscoe then visits Flynn wearing a wire, and Flynn admits on tape that Briscoe did not take the drugs.
Spoiler, the ending: Hellman retracts the charge against Briscoe, and Flynn is arrested for perjury, which breaks his probation. Asked to collect his things, Flynn shoots himself in his bathroom. With Flynn dead, Garcia returns to New York, beyond the prosecutors’ reach.
Why it stands out
- Briscoe acknowledges under oath that he is a recovering alcoholic who was drinking when the evidence was stolen.
- A corruption commission backed by the mayor and governor overrides the DA’s office to strike its own deal with a killer cop.
- Curtis’s refusal to let a fellow officer’s shooting go strains his partnership with Briscoe.