Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – Deductible

By starrymag | February 6, 2025

By: Kaylyn Bell

 

 

Kyra (Nicole Zyana) helps get her 9-year-old brother, Jay (Leo Easton Kelly), ready for school. She makes sure he has his keys and drops him off at the subway station, reminding him she’ll be home at 6pm. Kyra arrives at her job at AmeriWatch and is called into her boss Frank’s (David Alan Basche) office to meet Jim (Michael McGrady), an important prospective client. Frank tells her that she’ll be helping with the sales pitch.

Frank and Kyra arrive at Jim’s hotel room later that evening, and Frank instructs her to start the pitch while Jim pours them wine. As she starts, Frank gets a call from his wife saying his son is in the hospital. He abruptly departs, leaving Kyra alone to finish the pitch. Jim leaves the room and returns suddenly behind her, touching her hair.

At the precinct the squad is working on filing their overtime when Officer Moore (Kyle Kankonde) walks in with Jay and asks to speak to Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay). Moore explains that Jay walked into her precinct instead of going to school after his sister never came home. Moore says she brought Jay to SVU because she found out that his sister is in the hospital for a probable sexual assault.

Benson introduces herself to Jay and he explains that Kyra was supposed to stay late at work for a meeting, but then she never came home. Benson asks if they have any family he can stay with and he tells her it is just him and Kyra since their parents died last year. She tells him she’ll get someone on her team to take care of him while she takes care of Kyra.

Benson arrives at the hospital where a nurse (Rachel Deacon) informs her about Kyra’s condition. She meets Kyra and assures her that Jay is safe at her precinct and calls Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez) who is watching him so Kyra can speak to him. After Kyra hangs up she starts packing to leave, but Benson asks if they can make sure she’s okay first. Kyra assures her she’s fine; she just never should have let herself be alone with him. She says she can’t say anything more because she needs this job to take care of her brother. Benson encourages her to just explain what happened.

Fin (Ice-T) and Velasco (Octavio Pisano) arrive at Jim’s hotel to investigate the scene. A woman from housekeeping explains that she came to clean the room and found Kyra locked in the bathroom. She continues that Kyra wouldn’t come out until she knew the man was gone. After she opened the door Kyra said he forced himself on her so the hotel called 911. Fin orders for CSU to process the scene and Velasco asks for the hotel’s security footage.

Back at the hospital Kyra tells Benson that she was left alone for the pitch and then he pulled up her skirt and performed oral sex. She explains that she pushed him away, ran into the bathroom and hit her head when trying to shut the door on him. Benson tells her that what he did to her is a crime and suggests she do a rape kit in case she decides to press charges. A nurse brings Kyra a flower delivery from Jim with a note that reads, “Thanks for the great evening, no hard feelings.” This pushes her to file a police report and she agrees to a rape kit.

At the precinct Fin updates Benson that they have an outcry statement from a housekeeper, which will be helpful for their case. The squad discovers Jim is in the system due to a prior DUI, so once they have Kyra’s rape kit they’ll be able to match the DNA. Benson sends Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) and Velasco to speak with Frank while Fin and Silva speak with Jim.

Silva and Fin arrive at Jim’s office and he says nothing happened. Silva asks him to confirm that there was no physical contact at all and he admits there was, but it was consensual. 

Curry and Velasco question Frank. He says he trusted her to handle the deal herself when he had to leave and it seemed to have gone well. He adds that she sounded happy when he spoke to her this morning about her commission check.

Carisi (Peter Scanavino) meets Benson in her office for an update. She explains that Frank left her alone and that Jim claims he got mixed signals. Silva interrupts to inform Benson that Jay called her worried about Kyra because she won’t stop crying.

Silva and Benson arrive at Kyra’s apartment. Kyra tells Benson that Frank and Jim decided to give her extra money and she questions whether she’s confused and this is just a misunderstanding. Benson guarantees her that based on the way she described it in the hospital, it was not a misunderstanding. Benson receives the rape kit results and informs her that it’s a match to Jim, so they have enough to arrest him.

Fin and Velasco catch Jim about to get in one of his helicopters with some younger girls and arrest him. Fin and Curry take him into interrogation with his lawyer (Paige Jennifer Barr). He says he figured she was his gift for closing the deal because right before Kyra was brought in to meet him, Frank told him he had a deal sweetener for him. He adds that the reason Frank had to leave the hotel was made up, so he thought Kyra was in on it. From outside the interview room Benson asks Carisi what they can get Frank for because, according to Jim’s account, he’s an accessory. Carisi adds that it also could’ve been coercion if he threatened Kyra to do it.

Kyra arrives at the station with the COO of AmeriWatch, Grace Callahan (Lucy Owen), and Benson asks her to wait outside while Benson takes Kyra to her office. Benson informs Kyra that Frank told Jim she’d be willing to do anything to close the deal. In disbelief, she asks if Jim could be lying, but Benson says Frank’s wife never called him that night so he did intentionally leave her alone. Benson asks if he had any leverage over her and Kyra says that she was tasked with buying supplies but lost an envelope with two thousand dollars that Grace gave her to make the purchase. Kyra expresses she thought she was going to be arrested, but Frank said they could work it out if she worked commission. She says he told her that he was planning to promote her to sales anyway, so if she closed the deal with Jim that he would write off the money she lost. Benson tells her that what he did to her is coercion and she’s going to take him down for it.

Benson and Fin meet Carisi in his office and explain they have a case for coercion. Carisi asks them to find other victims to strengthen the case.

Benson meets Grace at a diner and she says she feels awful for what happened to Kyra but, as Frank said, it’s not on management. Benson asks for a list of young impressionable females that she’s hired in the past couple of years. Grace asks why she’d give her that and Benson notes that she was hoping to spare her the embarrassment of a subpoena to find out who really called Frank that night.

The squad interviews the women from the list and they all have the same story – they were hired to cultivate new clients by what Frank called “being table candy” until he expected them to do more. If the women refused to have sex with clients, Frank would threaten to fire them or just stop scheduling them in for work. Silva and Curry meet one woman, Morgan (Elizabeth Brady), who was fired for standing on her desk and screaming “screw Frank Bailey.” She says Frank found nudes she shared in college and threatened to show her family unless she was table candy for a prospective client. She asserts that she would be happy to testify to that.

Benson, Velasco and Fin arrive at AmeriWatch with a warrant to search the offices and Benson directs everyone to step away from their computers. Velasco announces that Frank is under arrest for sexual coercion in the second degree.

Carisi questions Jim on the stand. He testifies that Frank led him to believe Kyra would be open to sex. Carisi plays a recording of a call between Jim and Frank after the meeting. It shows that Jim was upset with Frank because Kyra was freaking out and Frank told him to just send her flowers. Frank’s lawyer (Brian Cade) suggests that Jim jumped to conclusions since Frank never explicitly mentioned sex, but Jim asserts that it was clear what Frank implied.

Morgan testifies that it was clear Frank wanted her to have sex with clients because the first time one tried something with her she complained to him and he said it was part of her job and then blackmailed her. Kyra testifies about her experience next. To discredit their statements, Frank’s lawyer implies that because both Morgan and Kyra took the financial bonuses, what happened wasn’t assault.

Frank states on the stand that he “absolutely did not” threaten his employees to engage in sexual acts. When Carisi questions why he made up a story about his son being sick he says he just wanted to let her gain experience independently and denies that it was because he told Jim that Kyra would do whatever he wanted. He claims that he never even said that; Jim lied about it.

After court Benson and Carisi reconvene in his office. She comments on how painful that was to watch, and Carisi replies, “Well, watching someone perjure themselves with no shame about it usually is.” Carisi asks her to find someone that colluded with him, or the jury may believe his lies.

Benson finds Grace leaving work, and she still refuses to testify against Frank. Benson tells her that after working for Frank for 20 years, she has a great incentive to stay quiet, but she questions how she can let Frank use young women for his own gain. Grace replies that they also gain something; they receive financial compensation and that’s just the cost of being a woman in business. Benson tells her that things have improved, just not at AmeriWatch. Grace asks what she’s supposed to do about it because it’s just the culture of sales. Benson replies, “You’re the Chief Operating Officer…You didn’t have a female COO when you were coming up, those girls do.” 

Benson and Kyra wait in the courthouse when Grace enters and tells Benson that she heard what she said. Grace testifies that Frank planned the whole thing and told her about it in advance, including explicitly mentioning that Kyra would have sex with Jim. She also states that Kyra didn’t lose the two thousand dollars as Frank took it from her purse when she went to the bathroom. She knows this to be true because she saw him. Additionally, twenty years ago he did the same thing to her. She says she’s testifying because she made a choice to stay silent 20 years ago, and other women like Kyra were hurt because of that choice when, as the COO, it was her duty to protect them.

The jury finds Frank guilty. Benson is disappointed Frank will be getting less than three years of prison time, but Carisi assures her he’ll get more because he’s going to charge him with perjury too. That will earn him an additional 5-15 years if he’s found guilty. Benson is relieved but says she finds it unsettling that lying about a crime is worse than committing the crime.