  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | I worked for years on that building. Putting up with all three of those lunatics - week after week, year after year, indulging them in their petty bickering, bailing that horrible woman out from her problems. I was so close to having it all pay off. | „ |
| ~ Braden explaining his reason for killing Virginia Boone. |
Charles Braden is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Possession". He is a real estate broker who murders one of the tenants of an apartment building he is trying to sell after she jeopardizes the deal.
He was portrayed by George Demas.
Overview[]
Braden is a real estate broker whose main client is Martha Taylor, the landlady of an expensive apartment building in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Taylor wants to sell the building for $12 million, which would net Braden a 10 percent commission equaling $1.2 million. They are both prevented from selling, however, by Taylor's estranged brother Steven Havel, who co-owns the building and refuses to let them buy him out because he is in love with the last remaining tenant, Virginia Boone, his wealthy former lover and the mother of his son.
Braden spends years negotiating with Taylor, Havel, and Boone, putting up with their frequent squabbling and petty complaints in order to get his money. He paid her $50,000 to vacate the building, but then she changed her mind and refused to leave. Braden confronts her about her reneging on their deal, but she still refuses to vacate her apartment. He then flies into a rage and stabs her to death with a pair of pinking shears.
"Possession"[]
While investigating Boone's murder, NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green at first suspect Taylor, who had lost several thousand dollars over the years by keeping Boone in her rent-controlled apartment. When they discover her pinking shears from her side clothing business covered in Boone's blood, they arrest her.
Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn try to indict Taylor for murder, but the grand jury refuses after she testifies that she has limited mobility in her right arm - the arm she would have used to stab Boone - as a result of a stroke. When Southerlyn investigates the building's finances, she discovers that Boone had been paid $50,000 to move, but she had refused to hold up her end of the bargain. She and McCoy suspect that Taylor conspired with Havel to kill Boone, with her paying Boone the money to lure her in, and with him doing the dirty work of stabbing her to death, and that both plotted to split the proceeds of the sale of the building. This theory turns out to be incorrect, as well, however; neither Taylor nor Havel authorized Boone's payment, and Havel did not even know he would have profited from the sale.
McCoy and Southerlyn investigate further and discover that Braden had in fact authorized the cash withdrawal without permission from Taylor or Havel. This gives them probable cause to have Braden arrested, and McCoy threatens him with 20 years to life in prison unless he tells them what he did. Defeated, Braden explains that he had lost his temper after Boone reneged on their deal and killed her. He then pleads guilty to manslaughter in the first degree, and he is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
External links[]
- Charles Braden on the Law & Order Wiki
