Saturday 21st November 11.00pm
The seventh season of the ‘Law & Order’ spin-off following New York’s elite special victims unit continues. This week, detectives probe the case of a teenager who abused his younger brother and ran a child-porn website. When the youngster is kidnapped, Stabler turns to Benson for help in tracing the culprits.
Stabler is called in when eight-year-old Jake Winnock tells his teachers he has been abused. His mother’s reaction stuns the detective. “Oh no, not again,” she says. It transpires that Jake’s older brother, Teddy, was abused by his dad, Gregory Hensal, when he was Jake’s age. The father spent seven years in jail after admitting his crime, but is now permitted to have supervised visits with Jake. Ms Winnock has no doubt that her ex-husband is to blame. “He ruined Teddy’s life and now he’s gonna destroy Jake’s,” she says.
Gregory Hensal insists he is innocent and his account passes a lie-detector test. The cops have a new, even more disturbing suspect in mind when DNA tests indicate Jake’s abuser was none other than Teddy, his brother. “Like father, like son,” says Fin. When confronted with proof of his guilt, Teddy refuses to accept he has done anything wrong. “So? My dad did stuff to me – didn’t mess me up,” he says. “Your dad screwed up your head so bad you don’t even know what you’ve done,” Stabler replies.
The detectives question one of Teddy’s classmates, who posted intimate pictures of Teddy around the school. “Teddy’s a freak and everyone needs to know it,” he says. The lad claims to know nothing about the police investigation and insists he found the pictures online. Stabler and IT tech Ruben Morales follow the link and discover that Teddy was running a child-porn website starring himself and his brother. “A minor shooting kiddie porn. That’s a new one,” remarks Stabler. Up to a thousand paedophiles subscribed to the site and paid Teddy for the images he posted. Teddy regards himself as an entrepreneur and refuses to tell police the identities of his subscribers.
Teddy’s lawyer, meanwhile, argues that the boy is a victim who has been manipulated by his online audience. He urges the cops to give Teddy one evening at home to change his mind. Stabler and Novak are sympathetic, but the matter is taken out of their hands when US attorney Donna Geysen steps in and demands that Teddy be arrested immediately. “You want to lock up one confused kid or a thousand guilty men?” Novak demands.
Stabler reluctantly goes to arrest Teddy, only for the boy to flee. Internet logs show a pair of subscribers on Teddy’s site have agreed to help ‘protect’ him. Morales suggests they can track one of the men online. “Let’s use this,” says Stabler. “We set up a meet and lure him out.” The plan yields a paedophile named Ralph Zessner, who provides the cops with the address of the apartment where Teddy shot films for his website.
The cops storm the flat, but the only trace of Teddy is a video recording of the lad being kidnapped by an unidentified man. With their leads exhausted, Stabler turns to Benson in the computer-crime unit. To his surprise, Benson appears to be enjoying her new job. “Computer scams, credit card frauds – I haven’t seen blood or tears in weeks,” she jokes. Using hi-tech software, Benson is able to trace the location of another of Teddy’s online fans.
The fan in question is one Dr Lucas, a hospital physician. Lucas claims to be in love with Teddy and refuses to say where he is. “Teddy’s gone and you’ll never find him,” he tells the cops. With Lucas refusing to say another word, Stabler wonders if Benson wants a reminder of her old job. “You wanna take a crack at him?” he asks. Can Benson break Lucas and find out where Teddy is being held?
