When Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Tackled Jeffrey Epstein
“Flight”—season 12, episode 15 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired in 2011—cold opens ..
“Flight”—season 12, episode 15 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired in 2011—cold opens like any other SVU episode: with a crisis. An unaccompanied 12-year-old on a plane to Paris freaks out after her seatmate, an older man, reaches over her to close the window shade. We learn that shes been triggered: two nights prior the girl was sexually assaulted at a party in New York City.
The perpetrator, she says, flew her to New York on a private jet. She thought she was coming for a modeling job. Instead she wound up at a birthday party where, she tells detectives Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), she and other young girls were the unsuspecting birthday presents. The recipient: a “billionaire pervert”—so described by the ever tactful SVU—named Jordan Hayes (Colm Feore). Hayes wanted a massage, the victim said, but she had to remove her clothes to give it. The assault proceeded from there.
“Flight” opens with a disclaimer: “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.” A usual sighting in the land of SVU, though particularly eerie while rewatching this episode in 2019. The episode is unmistakably inspired by the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested this month on charges of sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York (and pleaded not guilty to all charges). But this episode tackles an earlier case, when he was convicted of soliciting minors for prostitution in 2008. For the latter charge, he served only 13 months in prison courtesy of a plea bargain, despite federal prosecutors identifying up to 36 underage victims.
Key details of the episode are consistent with Epstein: the millionaire-plus status; the assaults on younger women whod been recruited to give massages and, loosely, the details of their experiences; and Hayess birthday party guest list, which includes a duchess, the mayor of New York, a former president, and NYCs police commissioner—all of which imply a level of power and political influence that holds just as true, if not even truer, for Epstein himself.
The police bit is particularly intriguing. As conceived by SVU, Jordan Hayes is a friend—a donor—to the NYPD. In real life the NYPD is said to have been overly lax in monitoring Epsteins sex offender registration, a detail discovered only recently, yet perceptively, apparent in “Flight” thanks to SVUs long-running fixation with the ability of the powerful to subvert justice.
Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Browns “Perversion of Justice” investigative series, published last year, details the complex, infuriatingly unjust ways that Epstein, a man of great financial means and significant political ties (including to multiple Read More – Source
