Flight (Season 9, Episode 4)
Premise: A child’s death from an exotic bacterium first looks like bioterrorism, then points to his father, and McCoy charges the company that mailed the germ to get the proof he needs.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 4
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Dylan Baker as Aaron Downing, J. Smith-Cameron as Paula Downing, Marianne Hagan as Theresa Copeland, John Griesemer as Hyram Jenkins, John Berg as Dr. Zev Weiss, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & William N. Fordes
Summary
The Investigation
“Flight” opens with five-year-old Ryan Downing collapsing at day care and dying of vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain traced to rural France. Fearing bioterrorism, a joint task force checks his school and the bus he rode and finds nothing. The M.E. then finds an injection mark on his thigh. A heroin addict, Clarence Meeks, dies of the same strain after using a syringe a junk dealer pulled from a building’s trash, and the needle also carries traces of Ryan’s blood.
One tenant, Theresa Copeland, works in claims at the insurer where Ryan’s father, Aaron Downing, works in compliance. Downing admits a year-long affair, and Copeland confesses that the two embezzled from the company, though most of the $450,000 has vanished. Downing says he left for a Syracuse trip that morning without stopping, but a plumber places a man who could be him in Copeland’s apartment. Police arrest him with cash, a passport and a ticket to Fiji.
The Trial
Bail is set at $1 million. Paula Downing says that in marriage counseling her husband called children better off never born, but a judge rules her account privileged and bars it from the grand jury. Bio-supply firm Allgen stalls on a subpoena for its shipping records, the statutory deadline passes without an indictment, and Downing is released on his own recognizance.
McCoy charges Allgen’s executives with manslaughter, backed by former vice president Hyram Jenkins, who was fired after urging checks on pathogen orders. To avoid trial, Allgen produces the missing order, faxed under a fake lab name to a private mailbox, and pleads to criminally negligent homicide without jail time. McCoy then demands a fine of double five years’ profits, about $11 million, and the judge considers a receiver until a federal court temporarily blocks sentencing.
Spoiler, the ending: A mailbox clerk identifies Downing, and the grand jury indicts him for second-degree murder, but he slips away before arrest and police trace his car to a motel in Secaucus, New Jersey. No trial or verdict is shown. McCoy’s office sends its files to Paula Downing for her civil suit against Allgen.
Why it stands out
- McCoy reads the statute allowing a fine of double the gain to mean five years of Allgen’s profits, about $11 million.
- Former executive Hyram Jenkins says Allgen rejected his screening rules after an anthrax precursor it sold to Pakistan reached an Iraqi national in Paris.
- McCoy uses a manslaughter charge against the supplier mainly to force out the records needed to indict the father.