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| “ | I did whatever I had to do to survive. | „ |
| ~ Christine manipulating the jury during her trial |
Christine Hartwell is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Valentine's Day".
She was played by Chloë Sevigny.
Biography[]
Christine Hartwell is the wife of wealthy Boyd Hartwell, and the mother of their daughter, Madison; however, she is a serial adulteress, as she has had affairs with four (confirmed) men. Among Christine's illicit lovers were delivery men Brad Hayes and Kevin Fahey, as well as Boyd's business partner, Justin Geld. Fahey was Christine's most recent lover, and after Geld informed the adulteress that Boyd would be arriving home early, Christine devised a plan to extort money from Boyd.
The plan had Christine instructing Fahey to abduct and rape her, with the abduction committed during Christine's Skype chat with Boyd. The couple went to Geld's loft, where they engaged in consensual sex before Christine went to pick up the ransom that Fahey demanded, that being $250,000. SVU was on the case, and they encountered Christine as she picked up the money. Shortly afterwards, Christine made a false claim that three Black men abducted her, but after evidence was shown that her "kidnapper" was a solitary White man, she implicated Fahey, who was later taken into custody. Fahey gave exact details of his and Christine's plan, but Christine stuck to her story. Even after video of Fahey and Christine having consensual sex was shown, Christine continued to claim that she was raped.
Christine is later arrested and charged with making a false report, and her affairs were brought to light, along with a detail that her fling with Brad ended because he bragged about the relationship. Knowing that she would be convicted, Christine approached a male juror at a stairwell and began seducing him, and when trial resumed, she continued to play the victim; claiming that all of her male lovers were lying about an affair with her--despite clear evidence.
Christine's seduction works, as the jury was deadlocked due to the juror voting not guilty. The same result was repeated after ADA Casey Novak's attempt to prove jury tampering failed, and as a result, Christine was a free woman. At the end of the episode, Boyd stood alongside of his wife, praising her as "the bravest person I know".
Trivia[]
- Christine is based on Quinn Gray, a woman who faked a kidnapping for ransom from her husband on Labor Day, with the assistance of accomplices.
- Christina is also partly based on Peter Gill, an offender known for seducing Gillian Guess, a juror who held out on a guilty verdict and perverted the course of Canadian justice through jury tampering, until both Guess and Gill were convicted of obstruction of justice once found out. In the episode, the genders are reversed.
External links[]
- Christine Hartwell on the Law & Order Wiki
