Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – Economics of Shame

By: Kaylyn Bell

Kelsey Sommers (Elizabeth Alderfer), a news reporter, arrives and is greeted by Mario (Jack Millard), the host at a restaurant she is a regular at. He tells her there’s a man waiting for her at her table and she explains that it’s a date. Mario replies that he’s glad to see her “get back out there.” She introduces herself to the man, Tyler (Jessie Allen Hitner), and once they start talking they really hit it off. The next morning Kelsey arrives at work and she tells her friend (Nyseli Vega) that it was an amazing date. Kelsey says Tyler was a gentleman, the exact opposite of Jake, her ex-boyfriend. She receives a nude picture of Tyler over text and she sends a selfie back, but he asks for something more, and she goes to the bathroom to take a nude picture.

Kelsey frantically arrives at her mom’s (Katherine Wallach) apartment, asking if she’d gotten a text from anyone. She checks her mom’s phone and then tells her she needs air and rushes to the roof while leaving Tyler a voicemail asking why he’s doing this to her. When she gets a notification, she drops her phone in distress. By the time her mom makes it to the roof she finds Kelsey standing on the ledge crying and explains that he’s threatened to send her pictures to everyone she knows unless she gives him money.

Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Fin (Ice-T) and Bruno (Kevin Kane) arrive at the scene after being contacted by Kelsey’s mom. Bruno explains that she’s being sextorted and Benson informs them she’s heading up to the roof. Benson takes over from the officers with Kelsey and manages to get her off the ledge.

Benson and Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) are with Kelsey in the hospital, and she thanks Benson for not letting her go through with that and assures them she’ll never do anything like that again. They ask her about what happened and she relays the story. Benson asks what he wants from her and Kelsey states it is $50k in cash. Kelsey tells them she’s worried about word getting out about this because she’s in the public eye. Benson says to keep doing the job that she loves and not to let anybody derail her, especially this guy.

Carisi (Peter Scanavino) meets Benson in her office to go over the case. Kelsey rushes in panicked and tells them that he recorded them having sex without her knowledge and that he’ll release the video if she doesn’t pay the cash within 48 hours. She is concerned for her job that is so important to her because it’s built on a foundation of trust with the public, and she doubts people will trust her judgment if this comes out.

Benson asks the squad if TARU has any updates for them, and Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez) informs her that, unfortunately, they couldn’t find or trace anything because he was using a fake number to contact Kelsey. Velasco (Octavio Pisano) adds that there were also no matches in the system to the DNA found at the restaurant and hotel. Bruno says he contacted an officer that works in the Bronx, which has had an influx of sextortion cases. He found one victim, Ruby Conzo (Kylie McNeill), whose case sounds like the same MO as Tyler and Benson heads to her apartment.

Benson shows Ruby pictures of Tyler and asks if he looks familiar, but she doesn’t recognize him. Ruby explains that she met the guy on an online bereavement forum after her parents died in an accident a few years ago. She says the guy called himself Nick and told her that his girlfriend died and they started talking more. She shares that she invited him over a few weeks later and they had sex, which he secretly recorded. Then, the next day he asked for $50k or he’d send the video to everyone she knew. She says the police didn’t seem like they could help in time, so she had to use the money from the settlement for her parent’s death to pay him. Before Benson leaves, Ruby tells her that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to trust someone again.

Back at the station Benson asks if there’s anything linking Nick with Tyler. Velasco says they can’t find anything. At a dead end, Benson says their only option is to get Kelsey to contact Tyler, so they invite her to the station. Benson directs Kelsey through the text conversation, and they organize a meetup to deliver the money.

Kelsey leaves the money in the trunk of a car as instructed with the squad standing by. They discover that Tyler is working with a team when an unknown man collects the money. Benson directs them to move in and they arrest him.

Benson meets with Ruby again and asks if she’s ever seen the man who collected the cash. She says no, and Benson asks her to go through every detail of the drop. After hearing Ruby’s account of it, Benson explains that the MO is exactly the same, and the cases seem to be connected.

Carisi enters Benson’s office, asking who the man is in interrogation. She explains he’s Neil Marsh (Travis Przybylski), an unemployed copywriter working with Tyler that they caught picking up the money. She tells him that Fin and Bruno are taking interrogation while Silva and Velasco search his apartment. In interrogation,Neil explains that he is a victim of sextortion as well and was forced to become part of the operation to work off the ransom since he couldn’t afford it. He furthers that his role is to search for people to target and that the person he’s working for is named Constantine (Leo Georgallis). The squad debriefs their findings and Benson thinks they should go after Constantine because that’s where the money goes, and so it would make sense for him to have all the photos. Carisi heads into interrogation and tells Neil to get in touch with Constantine and tell him he’s found a young rich venture capitalist to extort, so they can send a detective undercover. His lawyer agrees that Neil will cooperate as long as Neil gets his photos back. Benson contacts Kelsey and informs her that they haven’t found the man with her photos yet, but that Tyler was arrested and will do time, as he was part of the operation.

In a van Silva and Bruno are preparing Velasco to go undercover, and they send him into the restaurant to meet his “date,” Audra (Shanti Fiennes). They listen to him from the van and Silva complements his work. Bruno tells her that Velasco started out with undercover work, to which Silva replies she knows because she checked out the squad before transferring. Bruno asks if she knows about his own lawsuit against NYPD, and she says definitely because her father is not a fan of his. Meanwhile, in the restaurant, Audra invites Velasco to a hotel room, but he manages to politely turn her down and successfully get her his phone number before meeting his partners back in the van. On surveillance cameras they see Audra speaking with Constantine in a parked car who gives her money. They block him in his parking spot and arrest him.

Carisi and Bruno question Constantine in the precinct while officers go to his apartment to check his devices for photos and videos. Silva and Velasco question Audra to try and figure out her role in the scam. She says she gets paid to go on dates and get phone numbers, but she doesn’t do any of the texting. She says she communicates with Constantine over text, but sometimes they meet at Basil’s (Mark DiConzo) house. Unsure of who that is, they ask for the address. According to the database the owner on record for the address is Constantine’s brother. Benson says that because nothing was found on Constantine’s devices, they should search Basil’s house and arrest him.

Basil’s housekeeper lets them in and she tells them he’s just left for the airport. Fin orders for squad cars to be ready at all the local airports and to inform Homeland Security and Port Authority.

Curry enters Benson’s office with Kelsey. Kelsey asks Benson about her video because she heard that they’ve caught someone. Carisi informs her that they know who it is and they’re searching his house and computers for videos right now, but they haven’t located him yet.

Velasco, Silva and Bruno are alerted that Basil was pulled over and arrested on the way to JFK with $85k in cash on him. Benson tells Kelsey that they have him in custody, and Carisi heads out to work on the indictment for both the brothers. Benson tells her that she may still have to testify, but no one will have to see the video. Kelsey gets a notification and starts stressing; she tells them that he sent the video. Kelsey calls her friend at work who tells her that everyone’s seen it; it must have been a scheduled send. She hangs up and tells Benson that it’s over and that she never should have talked her off that roof. Benson says she will figure something out and she might know how to turn this around.

Constantine sees his brother in the hall from interrogation, and Benson and Bruno tell him that Basil tried to flee with their money. His lawyer (Ino Badanjak) tells him the cops are lying and to not tell them anything. Carisi challenges whether his counsel is looking out for his best interest. Bruno assumes his brother paid for his lawyer and suggests Basil is trying to get him to take the fall. Constantine tells his lawyer to leave and gives up information in exchange for a deal.

Basil is arraigned without bail. Outside the courtroom Neil thanks Velasco and Silva for catching the men because his photo never got released. He says the silver lining is that after being interviewed by Kelsey, he realized he was wrongfully terminated from his old job, so he’s suing.

Benson is watching Kelsey on TV reporting about sextortion, saying she went undercover to witness it firsthand. Fin walks in and asks if that was Benson’s idea and she replies, “I may have had something to do with it,” but says it was Kelsey’s idea to tell her boss she was working on a story. Benson meets with Ruby who is watching Kelsey’s report. Benson tells them they caught these guys that turned out to have been extorting hundreds of people. Ruby asks if she’s sure that her case is related, and Benson says TARU found her video and seized a significant amount of assets. Benson tells her that after everything is processed, she will get her money back. Ruby says it’s hard to believe because for so long she hasn’t been able to envision a future for herself. Benson tells her, “Don’t trust me, trust yourself.” She tells Ruby that after she gets her money and control back, she’ll be surprised by how many options she has.