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| “ | I'm the one you'll always remember. Hey! You're never going to get over me! Hey! You hear me? I'm the best that you ever had! You'll never forget me! You'll never forget me! You hear me? You will never forget me! | „ |
| ~ Lutz's breakdown as he curses his victims. |
Eric Lutz is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Smut". He is a wealthy, charismatic serial rapist who drugs his victims before assaulting them, and records the rapes so he can relive the experience later.
He was portrayed by Michael Trucco, who also portrayed Owen McGregor in Criminal Minds, Ethan Murphy in The Good Doctor, and Alec in Charmed.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Lutz is a wealthy businessman and closet sexual sadist who achieves sexual gratification from raping and beating women.
His first known rape occurred the night he proposed to his girlfriend, Shannon Browning. After she accepted his proposal, he overpowered and violently raped her that night, the assault growing more brutal the more she screamed in pain and fear. When she called off the engagement immediately afterward, he stalked her for more than a year, threatening to kill her if she went to the police.
In order to relive the power, he felt while raping Browning, but wanting to avoid potential accusations or police attention, Lutz started using the sedative scopolamine on his victims so they would be easier to control and would have no memory of the rape. By the events of the episode, he has drugged and raped four women, recording each assault so he can relive the experience later.
"Smut"[]
When Lutz's latest victim, Kelly Sun, is found wandering dazed, half-naked, and bloodied through Central Park, the NYPD's Special Victims Unit are called in to find out what happened to her. Scopolamine is found in her system, and she has no memory of what happened to her, so Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler conclude that she was drugged and raped.
After tracing Sun's activities on the day of the rape, Benson and Stabler discover that Lutz was with her around the time of the assault. When they question him, he claims that he and Sun had consensual sex. He later goes to the hospital to intimidate Sun into silence, but Benson and Stabler pull him away from her. Sun then accuses him of raping her, so Benson and Stabler take him to the SVU station house to question him.
Lutz again denies raping Sun and explains away her blood on his sheets by saying that she had been on her period when they had sex. Detectives John Munch and Fin Tutuola search his apartment and computer and find that he has a vast collection of rape-themed pornography, as well as encrypted files showing him raping Sun and three other women. Lutz lies that he and the women were just role-playing, and his female attorney argues that they do not have enough evidence to charge him.
Benson and Stabler eventually find and interview two of Lutz's victims, an escort and a woman from his gym; they both say they experienced blackouts right after meeting Lutz, and they are both horrified to see recordings of raping them, something of which they have no memory. Benson persuades them to press charges to empathizing with them as a victim of sexual assault herself. Benson and Stabler then arrest Lutz for multiple counts of rape.
Faced with damning evidence of his guilt, Lutz claims to have a compulsion to rape borne from years of watching violent pornography, and that he needs to be in rehab, not prison. During the trial, a psychiatrist testifies for the defense that watching pornography alters the chemical processes in one's brain, and that a person addicted to pornography is functioning like an alcoholic or a drug addict. Lutz himself testifies that pornography had rendered him powerless to control his actions, and that he felt remorse for what he had done.
While cross-examining Lutz, Assistant District Attorney Kim Greylek says that he feels nothing for his victims and is in fact sexually aroused by their suffering. To prove it, she plays a recording of Sun screaming in pain during the rape, during which Lutz becomes aroused. Lutz's lawyer objects but presiding judge Barry Moredock allows it. He soon demands the video be turn off after Greylek continues to press him and after he shouts at her. Greylek asks if he was sure after pointing out his arousal and he realized he compromised himself. Meanwhile, the defense discovers sexually suggestive material on Moredock's computer, which he says was planted there by a law clerk he had fired. Moredock nevertheless says that he has to declare a mistrial and recuse himself.
Benson pours over the evidence to find proof of Lutz's guilt. She finds out that Lutz had bought an $18,000 diamond ring years earlier and recalls that one of the women in his rape videos had been wearing an engagement ring. That night, she confronts Lutz on the street about the woman with the ring, but he accuses her of harassment and takes her picture with the intention of reporting her to her NYPD superiors. He then calls Browning to threaten her into silence, unaware that Benson had brought crime scene technician Ruben Morales with her, and that he had traced Lutz's call.
The next day, Lutz and his lawyer go to Greylek's office to complain about Benson, only to find that Benson is there as well, with Browning and his other victims in tow. Browning reveals that Lutz brutally raped her after she accepted his marriage proposal, and then says that she and his other victims will all press charges against him. An enraged Lutz proceeds to call Browning an "ungrateful bitch" and says that he would have given her whatever she wanted if she had just "been a loving wife" and gone along with his violent sexual demands. However, Browning angrily condemns his misogynistic behavior and his assault on her and the other women. At that point Benson brings in the other victims who stare him down.
His porn addiction defense having gone up in smoke, Lutz loses all control and tells his victims that they "loved it", while his lawyer tells him to be silent and tries to persuade Greylek to give him a plea bargain. Greylek refuses to consider anything less than a sentence of 25 years. As his victims turn their back on him in disgust, Lutz yells after them that they will never forget him. He is promptly detained by the guards, yelling continuously.
He is then imprisoned for multiples counts of rape and stalking.
Trivia[]
- Lutz is partly inspired by Andrew Luster, an heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune guilty of the rapes of four women, which were recorded on video after they were drugged with GHB. Luster briefly escaped to Mexico, but Duane Chapman, a bounty hunter, teamed with a local cop to force Luster back into America, where he was convicted and imprisoned for all charges of rape.
- Lutz is also inspired by Jeffrey Marsalis, a serial rapist of women who drugged his victims' drinks before kidnapping and raping them, leaving them to wake up with no memory of the night before.
External Links[]
- Eric Lutz on the Law & Order Wiki
