History Recap / LawAndOrderS17E12CharityCase

Soap opera star Sofia Archer is on an early morning walk with her husband Sean, her daughter Agatha, her adopted infant Christopher Mogae, and the child's nanny, Mary Calvin. The Archers and Calvin are all white, and Christopher is black. Sofia is taking care to make sure that no one sees or photographs Christopher. Sofia, Calvin, and Agatha enter an ice cream store, where the clerk recognizes Sofia and her baby -- Sofia's celebrity status was enhanced when she adopted Christopher from the impoverished African country of Mumoono. Sofia tries to get Agatha some ice cream as the clerk pesters her to be the first to see Christopher, but they stop when they all hear Sean getting into an argument outside. He is shot by an unseen assailant and crashes backwards through the window of the ice cream shop. The baby is unharmed, but Sean is dead.

Green tells Van Buren that Brody had no gun, that he'd just woken up (as evidenced by the bourbon on his breath), and that the gunpowder residue test on his hands was negative. He points out, though, that Sean's philandering destroys the image that he and Sofia tried to project of them being a devoted traditional couple. Van Buren asks why this matters, and Green says that it widens the suspect pool considerably if Sean and Sofia could have both been seeing other people. Cassidy comes in with a ballistics report -- the bullets in Sean match the gun of a Marlon Cooper, a civil rights attorney who was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

Cooper, a white man, tells the detectives that the assault charge was dropped. He claims to not care about the Archers and to not be following the adoption. He has an alibi for the time of the shooting. As for his gun, he claims that it was stolen. However, the detectives find a brochure for a civil rights group and locate it at a protest, where the members tell them that Cooper was obsessed with the Archer adoption, to the point where the group disassociated themselves from him. The members explain that the adoption was illegal -- Mumoono requires adoptive parents to live in the country for a year, but the Archers were only there for three days. Cooper had wanted to protest the Archers. Cassidy asks why they broke off their association with Cooper, since Cooper was protesting on behalf of Mumoono and Christopher Mogae; the members say that they want money for AIDS research and to help war orphans, and the Archers brought money to Mumoono with their adoption. Regardless of the motivations of the Archers, the members say, the adoption was good for the country. Green verifies that Cooper wasn't convinced by this argument, and he and Cassidy are referred to a Letter to the Editor that Cooper wrote.

Farmer says that Sofia had only been around Christopher for three days or so before leaving for the spa, and that Calvin was his exclusive caretaker. Rubirosa points out that this flatly contradicts Sofia's press statements, which Sofia agrees with. She insists, though, that it wasn't a publicity stunt, and that she was giving Christopher a better life, and was drawing attention to the impoverished country of Mumoono. [=McCoy=] cuts her off.

->"Save that for the press, Mrs. Archer."\\
--Jack [=McCoy=]

In court, Calvin testifies to burying Christopher and to approaching Harris at Sofia's orders.

->"She knew that… it would be charitable to raise him as Christopher, and that the press and the public would never know the difference."\\
--Mary Calvin

Rubirosa tells Sofia that, if she lets Mogae see his son, he'll plead guilty to manslaughter and serve fifteen years. Otherwise, he goes to trial. Sofia will have to testify, and possibly Agatha as well. Furthermore, the gun was broken -- it might have really went off on its own, and Mogae could be sympathetic enough to encourage the jury to acquit. Sofia asks how Mogae could possibly be sympathetic, so Rubirosa points out that the Archers refusing to let Mogae see his son will look bad, as will the illegalities in the adoption. Sofia is horrified, but Rubirosa presses on, saying that it will only be for five minutes, Mogae can't come within three feet of the child, and Rubirosa, Green, and Cassidy will be supervising it. Sofia, in tears, agrees, after Calvin offers to supervise as well. However, when Mogae sees the child's face at the jail, his grin vanishes and he begins to look horrified. Rubirosa looks puzzled, as does Calvin.

"This… is not my son."\\

She takes them to the burial site, a wooded area off the street. After some difficulty, the detectives and other officers find Christopher's corpse.

Soap opera star Sofia Archer is on an early morning walk with her husband Sean, her daughter Agatha, her adopted child Christopher Mogae, and the child's nanny, Mary Calvin. The Archers and Calvin are all white, and Christopher is black. Sofia is taking care to make sure that no one sees or photographs Christopher. Sofia, Calvin, and Agatha enter an ice cream store, where the clerk recognizes Sofia and her baby -- Sofia's celebrity status was enhanced when she adopted Christopher from the impoverished African country of Mumoono. Sofia tries to get Agatha some ice cream as the clerk pesters her to be the first to see Christopher, but they stop when they all hear Sean getting into an argument outside. He is shot by an unseen assailant and crashes backwards through the window of the ice cream shop. The baby is unharmed, but Sean is dead.

Green asks if Brody shot Sean; Brody says no. He has no alibi; he claims that he was in the apartment at the time of the shooting, but no one can verify that. Cassidy asks him why he called Sofia to tell her that Sean was sleeping with Darla, ,and he says that he wanted revenge, but that it didn't do any good because Sofia didn't care. He calls the Archers 'whores' and collapses down onto his couch. He allows the police to search his room for a gun, saying that it won't take them long to find that he doesn't have one.

She testifies that, when she returned from Mumoono, she was told by her agent that she was being considered for a prominent role in a remake of Film/BlackNarcissus, but she'd have to lose weight to get it. She left Christopher with Calvin, she says, to go to the spa to get in shape. When she returned, she had minimal contact with Christopher -- almost, she says, as if Calvin was keeping them separate. Lastly, she denies all of the charges leveled against her by [=McCoy=] and Calvin.

Rubirosa sighs, saying that Sofia was using a baby as fashion. She asks [=McCoy=] to pour her another drink.

Rubirosa finds [=McCoy=] with the test results. Mogae was right; the child Calvin brought in for the viewing wasn't Christopher. Rubirosa has a lead on where to start looking for Mogae's real child, though: the DNA indicated that the child's mother is Lashonda Harris, who went to jail four months ago (the same time that the Archers returned to America) and still has nine years and eight months to go. She was caught smuggling in heroin in bags that she'd swallowed; a bag burst, Harris was present at the time. Furthermore, she was Sofia's former assistant.

Rubirosa orders that Calvin be formally arrested, and Sofia too. Cassidy asks why they're arresting Sofia, and Rubirosa says that Sofia had to know what happened. The detectives arrest Sofia, and have to fight through a mass of press and paprazzi

She testifies that, when she returned from Mumoono, she was told by her agent that she was being considered for a prominent roll in a remake of [[BlackNarcissus]], but she'd have to lose weight to get it. She left Christopher with Calvin, she says, to go to the spa to get in shape. When she returned, she had minimal contact with Christopher -- almost, she says, as if Calvin was keeping them separate. Lastly, she denies all of the charges leveled against her by [=McCoy=] and Calvin.

Harris tells Rubirosa that Sofia was an absent mother to Agatha; she never yelled at or hurt Agatha, but she was never around the child. She insists that Sofia didn't drink or do drugs, aside from prescription medications, and was incapable of hitting a child. If her child through a fit, says Harris, Sofia would just leave the room so Harris could deal with it. If Harris wasn't around, Sofia would just ignore the problem until somebody who knew what they were doing showed up.

In a conference room, Rubirosa says that Sofia was the only one whose fingerprints were on the pill bottle, and Christopher's DNA (from saliva) was recovered on several of the pills in the vacuum cleaner. Farmer says that Sofia may have simply wiped Christopher's mouth, then opened the pill bottle. [=McCoy=] then says that they know that Sofia, from the health spa, canceled an expensive anti-malarial drug that Christopher was on. The drug is rare and only sold through the CD, and the lawyers already know that Sofia didn't place another order. The only reason she would cancel the order and not obtain it from another pharmacy is if she knew that she wouldn't need it -- which would mean that she knew that Christopher was dead.

->"Yeah, that's an awful situation. Got you drunken'."\\

Soap opera star Sofia Archer is on an early morning walk with her husband Sean, her daughter Agatha, her adopted child Christopher Mogae, and the child's nanny, Mary Calvin. The Archers and Calvin are all white, and Christopher is black. Sofia is taking care to make sure that no one sees or photographs Christopher. Sofia, Calvin, and Agatha enter an ice cream store, where the clerk recognizes Sofia and her baby -- Sofia's celebrity was enhanced when she adopted Christopher from the impoverished African country of Mumoono. Sofia tries to get Agatha some ice cream as the clerk pesters her to be the first to see Christopher, when they all hear Sean getting into an argument outside. He is shot by an unseen assailant and crashes backwards through the window of the ice cream shop. The baby is unharmed, but Sean is dead.

Soap opera star Sofia Archer is on an early morning walk with her husband Sean, her daughter Agatha, and her adopted child Christopher Mogae and the child's nanny, Mary Calvin. The Archers and Calvin are all white, and Christopher is black. Sofia is taking care to make sure that no one sees or photographs Christopher. Sofia, Calvin, and Agatha enter an ice cream store, where the clerk recognizes Sofia and her baby -- Sofia's celebrity was enhanced when she adopted Christopher from the impoverished African country of Mumoono. Sofia tries to get Agatha some ice cream as the clerk pesters her to be the first to see Christopher, when they all hear Sean getting into an argument outside. He is shot by an unseen assailant and crashes backwards through the window of the ice cream shop. The baby is unharmed, but Sean is dead.