"True Believers" is Episode 6 in Season 13 of "Law & Order: SVU." The episode aired on November 2 , 2011 at 10 pm ET on NBC.
The episode opens with a young girl entering her apartment after grocery shopping. She holds the door for a young man coming into the elevator, and he follows her into her apartment at gunpoint. Because he seems fairly calm, she tries to appease him without making a fuss or trying to escape. He tells her to take off her clothes, and precedes to rape her.
SPOILERS!
Olivia convinces the girl, Sarah, to go to the hospital and get checked out, although because the condom was flushed and she showered afterwards, the case is obviously going to be difficult to prosecute.
Detectives find the camera footage from the elevator an arrest a guy who looks like the perp, but Sarah ends up seeing the real perp outside of a bar. She calls detectives, and they track the suspect down.
Preparing for each of their cases, the perp, Michael, gets a top-notch lawyer named Ellis to defend him, while Sarah is interviewed by Cutter. She reveals that her boyfriend is also her piano teacher, and she didn't want him involved in fear of him losing his job. A bartender tells detectives that the night before the incident, Sarah was drunk and flirting with random guys at the bar. Meanwhile, lawyer Ellis questions the incident in which Rollins and Finn frisked the wrong suspect, and Cutter reminds Amaro that he needs to make no mistakes with this case as there's a lot at stake for the NYPD as well. Sarah gets a message on her machine notifying her that Michael has been released. Olivia tells her to stay calm, as a unit is being sent over.
In court, the lawyers argue whether or not Michael's gun was in plain sight when Amaro and Benson arrested him. The medical examiner tells Benson that DNA was found on the sheets, but it didn't belong to Michael nor Sarah's boyfriend. Sarah reveals that the night before the rape, she picked up a guy at a bar who was also African American, and this is also reflected on the elevator tape. Cutter is now worried that the defense has more ammunition.
In court, Michael is calm and mature on the stand, stating that he sells pot to provide for his family but the gun didn't belong to him. He says Sarah invited him into her apartment and he helped her with her groceries. She then offered him a beer, and he wanted to go, but Sarah then requested to have sex with him. He says he denied her, as he loves his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Cutter delivers his statement to the jury about Sarah's side of the story. Ellis then questions Sarah on the stand. Using her one night stand from the night before, along with her refusal to inform anyone until a day later of the incident, Ellis intimidates her.
In the end, the defendant is found not guilty of rape nor gun possession.
Overall, there was nothing particularly unique or exciting about this episode of "SVU," but it was surprisingly well-acted an executed.
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