In Law & Order: SVU season 26 episode 7, “Tenfold,” Fin (Ice-T) and Bruno (Kevin Kane) are surprised when they cross paths with Wallen Sipes (Ciara Monique), a survivor they previously helped to get justice in another sexual assault case. This time, she’s a little hesitant to help the police put the suspect behind bars, plus a familial tie makes it hard for SVU to ensure he goes to prison for his crimes.
Elsewhere, Carisi (Peter Scanavino) gets his own blast from the past after he spots the man who previously made eyes at his 9-year-old daughter looking at other underage girls. When Carisi tries to enact some “preventative” form of justice, he enters a morally grey area that Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) warns him about.
Here’s what happened in Law & Order: SVU season 26 episode 7.
A good deed goes wrong
Wallen is applying makeup in the bathroom when her mom walks in and tells her she looks nice, but cautions her daughter about being on the streets late. The young woman tells her mom not to worry, then heads to the corner, joining other sex workers. As the other women talk about having to cut their pimps in for some of their proceeds, Wallen stresses she doesn’t have one.
When one of the pimps shows up, the other women scatter, leaving Wallen and a young lady named Jade (Faith Marie Rodriguez) by themselves. Wallen realizes Jade is covering up bruises, which Jade says she got because she’s not a great earner. Feeling sympathy, Wallen gives Jade some money and tells her to call it a night. Jade is taken aback by the kind gesture and leaves.
Later, Wallen is walking the streets of New York and is attacked from behind. The man wraps a scarf around her neck, drags her between two parked cars and assaults her.
Over in the SVU squad room, Olivia is on her way out and spots Fin and Bruno working late. She encourages them both to go home; they decide to leave and go for a drink. However, before Fin and Bruno make it outside the door, they get a call about the assault. On the scene of the crime, Bruno recognizes Wallen, who believes she was raped.
Making a case
The next morning, Carisi interrupts Olivia meditating in her office to complain about Timothy Cottle (Ari Brand), the man who Carisi once caught inappropriately looking at his daughter. Carisi tells Olivia he saw Cottle eyeing other girls, and when Carisi did a background check on him he discovered Cottle works as a substitute teacher in the public schools. Olivia acknowledges that's not ideal, but there’s nothing she can do about that at the moment. He presses her to go with him to the school to see if due diligence was performed in hiring Cottle. She eventually agrees.
At the hospital, the doctor shares with Fin and Bruno that it appears Wallen was sexually assaulted, but she refuses to get a rape kit. In fact, Wallen is preparing to check out of the hospital. Before she does, however, Fin and Bruno beg her to get a rape kit and help them catch the guy who did this so they want to get the guy before he has a chance to do this to someone else. She agrees to the examination.
Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) and Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez) show up to help with the case. Fin sends them back to look around the scene of the crime in case CSU missed something. When the duo arrives at the scene, they find a broken heel under a car. They notice the car is an electric one with a surveillance camera installed in the back. They contact Olivia to ask Carisi to get a warrant for the footage.
Back with Olivia, she and Carisi are leaving Cottle's school, as the school claims no one complained about him. Carisi still can’t let this go and is determined to find another way to get Cottle out of the school system. Olivia rather he focus on getting her a warrant for the car video.
Who is Miguel, and did he attack Wallen?
After the rape kit came back with three different semen samples, Fin and Bruno meet with Wallen at a dinner with questions. She admits she has been doing sex work again to help cover her mom’s rent and to pay for classes for her GED. Wallen also shares she didn’t see the guy who raped her, as he attacked her from behind, but she does mention a guy from earlier in the night who got rough with her and had to fight off. He apparently asked for Jade during the exchange.
Fin and Bruno arrive at Jade’s apartment and ask about one of Jade’s regulars possibly attacking Wallen. Right away, Jade names Miguel (Miguel Cervantes), who lives in the Bronx and drives a gold champagne color car with grey patchwork. SVU is able to pull a driver’s license for Miguel Rivera, who owns a car fitting the description.
Once again, Fin and Bruno meet with Wallen, this time asking her to identify Miguel from a photo lineup. She doesn’t want to snitch but reluctantly identifies Miguel as the man who got rough with her. Wallen agrees to go to the station to identify Miguel in video footage from the previously mentioned car camera.
At the station, Olivia plays the clip and Wallen becomes very upset seeing herself being attacked. She says she can’t watch the full video. However, Olivia asks if there is something in the video that clearly identifies Miguel. Wallen brings up the missing button on the assailant’s shirt in the clip. Miguel was wearing a similar shirt that night, and she ripped off his button in her escape from him the first time.
During questioning at his job, Miguel is not forthcoming about anything to Fin and Bruno. In fact, he tells the detectives not to believe the word of sex workers over him, offering up an alibi for the time of the attacks. He says he was home by midnight, and his sister can vouch for him as she is his roommate. When Curry and Silva ask the sister about the alibi, she confirms Miguel was home at the time of the attack.
With his sister's statement, there’s not enough for Carisi to get a conviction for sexual assault, just solicitation. Hearing that, Bruno and Fin visit the street where Wallen was working to talk to some of the other girls. The detectives learn that Miguel has a pattern of attacking sex workers. Upon further investigation, the officers discover that previous complaints were made about Miguel but the charges never stuck because his sister always provided an alibi.
Curry and Olivia go talk to the sister again and confront her about her brother’s pattern. She is resistant to believe them initially, but sobs after Olivia puts the proof before her. The sister admits to sowing the button Wallen ripped off her brother’s shirt and fabricating that he was at home during the attack.
That’s enough for Carisi to go to Miguel and his attorney to convince them to take a plea deal for the sexual assault on Wallen. The other assault cases are also being reopened.
Carisi’s grey area
As Wallen’s case is wrapping, Carisi is dealing with a moral dilemma. He shares with Olivia that he had his investigators go to the Board of Education’s HR department and ask about Cottle. It turns out there was one complaint made about him from a girl’s parent who says Cottle gave the girl an “ick vibe.” Carisi wants to get the guy on something to prevent him from attacking a child, but Olivia cautions him that thinking like that is predictive policing, which is ethically questionable.
Cottle later shows up to Carisi’s office and claims Carisi got him fired. However, Cottle isn’t upset with Carisi, he actually asks for help as he does look at young girls with an attraction, although he’s never acted upon it. A perplexed Carisi doesn’t know what to do, but Olivia presses him to help.
By the end of the episode, Carisi and Olivia escort Cottle to a meeting at the New York Institute of Sexual Health. The meeting is a part of a sexual behavior modification process.
New episodes of Law and Order: SVU air on Thursdays on NBC and become available the next day on Peacock .
