The Ledger

Trade This

In this episode (10.16), a gunman storms into a brokerage firm and opens fire, injuring a secretary and killing a young broker. Briscoe and Green try to figure out who would want the broker dead. At first they think it's someone who sent him a harassing email about his nearly-naked appearance in a "Boys of Brown" calendar put out as a "college prank," or one of his clients who lost a money during the dot-com bust. When they investigate, they learn that a disgruntled client has been missing since the shooting. They put out a notice on his car's license plate, and it gets reported at JFK's long-term parking. The man is found dead inside, shot by his own hand.

From here, the detectives, McCoy, and Carmichael dig deeper, and learn that although the shooter was apparently lost some money, there were others who had motive to see him killed. The victim had recently settled a sexual harassment suit against his employer for $2 million. At first it appears that this was related to the calendar email, but McCoy and a forensic technician learn that the email was inserted into the system, and its data was altered to make it appear that it arrived earlier than it actually did. This leads McCoy to believe that the settlement pay-off was actually a way of bribing the victim because he knew something. Further investigation shows that the victim knew of the firm's habit of "pumping and dumping" certain stocks as a way of making a quick profit.

They bring in the firm's founder, who says that he was forced to take this aggressive, and illegal, action because of his firm's involvement with....the mob. But it turns out another partner at the firm had been bilking the mob out of $4 million, and the senior members of the mob family involved had just learned of this. This partner arranged for the death of the victim, but was himself in great danger for the mob.

This plot twist puts the DA's office in the unusual position of having to portray the mob as a victim of a crime, instead of the perpretor. The prosecution's witnesses, therefore, have a lot of credibility issues (which the defense is quick to point out), but McCoy believes he can make the case based on additional evidence that does not directly concern the mob.

Although the episode's plot doesn't quite hold up under close investigation, it's an entertaining and fairly well-written sotry that holds your interest throughout.

Couple of quick casting notes: Michael Gross, the dad on Family Ties, shows up here as the founder of the brokerage firm, and the guy who plays the head of the New York family on The Sopranos plays the head of the family here.

Posted by adm at February 22, 2004 08:38 PM

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