Family Business (Season 7, Episode 8)
Premise: The finance chief of a family-owned Manhattan department store is shot in his office, and suspicion falls on both of the owner’s daughters.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 7, Episode 8
- 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
- Anne Twomey as Kate Bergreen-Spiegel, Joseph Wiseman as Seymour Bergreen, Jean De Baer as Laura Bergreen, Victor Slezak as Jeffery Arbaugh, Richard Venture as defense attorney Douglas Greer
- Director
- Lewis H. Gould
- Writers
- Gardner Stern & Barry M. Schkolnick
Summary
The Investigation
“Family Business” opens after hours at Bergreen’s department store, where a guard hears shots and finds chief financial officer Richard Spiegel dead in the executive suite, which has its own elevator and street exit. Spiegel was married to Kate Bergreen-Spiegel, who runs the store with her sister, Laura, since their father, Seymour Bergreen, retired on his doctor’s orders.
The detectives first look at designer Paul Medici, caught up in a lawsuit between Bergreen’s and a rival store, D&S. A private investigator who once worked vice with Briscoe has photographs of Medici in an affair with Kate. Kate admits the affair, describes an open marriage, and says she was home with her father by 9:30. Spiegel had been consulting a white-collar criminal lawyer, and comptroller Charles Herman reveals that Laura made him use employees’ 401(k) contributions to pay bills, and that Spiegel had confronted her about it.
A robber caught with a .22 Ruger says he found it in a trash can outside the store. Ballistics tie it to the killing, Laura’s fingerprints are on it, and it is registered to Jeffery Arbaugh, Kate’s live-in spiritual adviser, who bought it for her. Arbaugh says Spiegel had threatened divorce and a custody fight. Both sisters claim to have been with their father around 10 p.m. without seeing each other, and both are arrested.
The Trial
A judge rules that Arbaugh, an ordained Episcopal priest who also mows the lawn and walks the dogs, counts as clergy, so Kate’s talks with him are privileged. A masseur recalls Laura telling Kate by phone, the night before the murder, that if Kate would not act, she would. Kate wins full immunity and testifies that Laura was desperate to stop Spiegel from telling their father how much damage she had done to the company.
Called by the defense, Seymour says Laura brought him his pills before the 10 o’clock news, then tells McCoy that Kate was the one who was out, and that she confessed the killing to him. McCoy suspects Laura’s lawyer, Greer, encouraged the lie knowing Kate’s immunity protects her, and asks for a mistrial; the judge grants a five-day continuance instead. Seymour is arrested for perjury but holds to his story, the inquiry into Greer turns up nothing, and Laura refuses a plea.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Laura Bergreen not guilty of second-degree murder. The office offers Seymour a perjury plea with a $10,000 fine, and McCoy is left to absorb the loss.
Why it stands out
- A judge treats a handyman with a past Episcopal ordination as clergy, shielding Kate’s statements under the priest-penitent privilege.
- Kate’s immunity deal backfires when her father tells the jury she confessed to him, a claim she can no longer be prosecuted over.
- McCoy loses outright: the jury acquits Laura Bergreen.