The Ledger

12.23 Oxymoron

In this somewhat memorable episode (12.23), a pretty young upper-class part-time drug dealer is found dead in the street, and a Russian mobster or his father is apparently to blame. Briscoe and Green investigate.

This is the episode exhaustively documented in the official Law & Order: Crime Scenes book available at Barnes & Noble.

The episode begins with two women walking down the street discussing the breakup of a friend's marriage. They notice a well- but sexily-dressed dead woman between two cars. She has no ID on her, but she has a number written on a piece of paper which turns out to be the hack license of a cab driver. The detectives track down the cabbie, who say he had a dispute with her which led to her being angry enough to write down his license number. He says he saw her get into a black Infiniti with another man. They check at a local deli, where the owner says he frequently gets customers from a regular "party" that happens in a nearby apartment building. They learn from the doorman that a party does indeed happen there, and he implies the party is of a sexual nature. Guests must know the password "Bill and Monica' to get in. They learn from the party's hosts that their victim's nickname was Xena, and that she attended the party with a man named Andrew Skinner. Skinner says he watched Xena have an argument about drugs with another girl. This girl, Alexandra, works at a club and tells them the victim's real name is Eliza Glazer. Glazer, Alexandra says, was her doctor!

It turns out that Dr. Glazer was complicit in a scheme to supply the powerful pain-killer Oxycontin to those who could afford its $8K/bottle price tag. The detectives track down some people for whom the prescriptions were written, but they are all victims of identity theft. They turn their attention to the pharmacy. The older couple who runs it knows nothing, but their middle-aged son-in-law who watches the store during the week was involved with the scheme. Under pressure, he admits that he was the middleman between Dr. Glazer and a Russian mobster named Tommy Avakian.

Briscoe and Curtis head over to OCCB where they learn that Avakian has cornerd the Oxy market in recent years. They raid a bar in Brooklyn where he's hanging out and bring him in. Southerlyn soon learns that the US Attorney's office is interested in the case, and this could create conflicts as the case goes on. The cabbie picks Avakian out of a line-up, so things aren't looking good for him, and it gets worse when they learn that Avakian owns the bar where Alexandra works, hence his connection to Dr. Glazer. Alexandra says that Glazer wanted out, but Avakian pressured her to stay in, and it appears tht this led to her death.

A female prosecutor from the US Atty's office stops buy and wants to know what's going on. She also provides surveillance tapes of Avakian threatening Glazer. She says you can use it for background, but she can't let the DA's office use it at trial. As a way around this, McCoy confronts Avakian and says he has a witness who "overheard" Avakian threatening Glazer. Realizing he's cornered, Avakian rolls on his father, Nicky, who he says is behind the whole Oxy distribution ring and the murder of Dr. Glazer.

The dad, Tommy, is arraigned, but when McCoy talks him about making a deal, his lawyer says that Tommy has information about a man who sells bomb-making materials, no questions asked. McCoy refuses the bait, and walks out. But when the US Atty's office learns that McCoy has refuses to make a deal in exchange for information that might lead to the uncovering of a terrorist operation, they pressure him to make a deal. DA Nora Lewin refuses, despite arbitration overseen by a federal judge.

Tommy then withdraws his cooperation, and McCoy argues that the whole thing was a set-up all along: Tommy planned to give up his dad, and his dad would use the terrorist info as a bargaining chip. Nicky's attorney then argues to a judge that McCoy unlawfully withdrew the plea bargain with Nicky, but this is absolute garbage: the attorney herself withdrew the offer, not McCoy, so why is there even a discussion about this?

McCoy wins this decision, and then essentially forces Tommy to roll on his father, this time for real. McCoy lets Tommy off the hook for the murder charges, but goes after him on the Oxy distribution charges. Since Tommy is a third-time felon, he's going away forever unless he cooperates. So he still has to testify against his father about the mob operations, otherwise he'll be prosecuted for Glazer's murder. McCoy certainly outfoxed everybody on this one! Tommy gets a deal for 10-20, and he testifies against his father, who tells him that he would have done the same thing, but his final words to Tommy are "Watch your back."

Posted by adm at April 4, 2004 06:43 PM

Comments

Post a comment

validate