The Ledger

3.11 Extended Family

In this episode (3.11), a toddler girl is kidnapped, and her wealthy father, a Broadway producer, quickly becomes a suspect. But the investigation soon focuses on the girl's mother, who may have kidnapped the girl because she thought her daughter was the victim of sexual abuse. A prominent child psychologist may have gone too far in eliciting the girl's tales of abuse, however, and by the end of the episode, the truth of the situation is murky at best. Briscoe anf Logan do as well as they can on the investigation, and Stone and Robinette are left to make sense of it all.

The episode begins with a young girl, about 5 or 6, walking with a woman who seems to be her mother at the mall. She is clutching a teddy bear. The woman stops at a cosmetics counter, and when she looks down to spot the girl, she is nowhere to be found. She panis, and calls out "Samantha! Samantha!" but the girl cannot be located. Briscoe and Logan respond to the call (an unusual one for them), and we learn that the woman is actually the girl's nanny. The girl's father, Gary Silver, a Broadway producer, arrives and is extremely angry with the nanny.

The detectives review a security videotape from the mall and see a toy store employee speaking to her. They track down the employee, Mr Zorn, who has a a record of sexual abuse. They visit his apartment, and find a doll in a shoe box. They visit him at his place of work, a chocolate factory, and bring him in for interrogation. He says the kidnapped girl was admiring a gorilla in the window, and he was talking to her about it. They learn that the girl left via the store's loading dock with the gorilla, in the company of another person, and they got into a Lincoln car. They find a man, Mr Fisher, who got a parking ticket there at that time and he drives a Lincoln. They bust into his apartment, and find the gorilla and a little girl. The problem is, it's the wrong little girl. It's Mr Fisher's daughter. However, they learn from Profaci that Mrs Fisher has a criminal record for protesting on behalf of children. They track her to the Children's Defense Fund (or some similar organization) which gives a lot of money to a woman named Ramona Stark. They trace Stark to a town house. When they reach the house, they hear the sound of children coming from the basement. They break in and find a bunch of kids in the basement, along with Stark, Samantha, and Samantha's natural mother. It turns out that Stark was co-ordinating some kind of "underground railroad" for abused women and children. They arrest Stark.

Robinette examines Stark's background and learns she is an advocate for children who claim abuse. He also learns that sometimes it seems like Stark's testimony about abuse is improperly elicited and used as a weapon in custody battles. Olivet examines Samantha to determine whether she has been abused by her father. She draws pictures of her family, and she portrays her father as very large and angry. Olivet says the girl's statements and behavior are inconclusive. The girl is not "intact" and suffers some scarring, but apparently that evidence (which is never really explained) is inconclusive, too.

They talk to Silver's adult daughter, who indirectly suggests she was abused. Schiff advises Stone to seek a plea deal for Sex Abuse 2. Silver refuses the deal, and the case against him is weak. They review a tape of Stark interviewing the girl, and she says her father abused her. Unfortunately for Stone, this tape is not allowed at trial: the girl must testify herself.

So Silver goes to trial for Sex Abuse I. At trial (49'), the daughter testifies in chambers. She is nervous during her testimony and appears confused. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say," she says. And then when asked if her father did anything inappropriate, she replies, "Ramona [Stark] said it was bad." It sure looks like Stark coached her testimony. Mrs Silver wants to take Samantha to France, but she doesn't have custody of the child. When the verdict comes back and Silver is found not guilty, we learn that Mrs Silver has abducted her daughter and fled.

Posted by adm at June 27, 2004 04:44 AM

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