| “ | Pick a lane, that's what the old man used to say. He used to say, 'Jackie, life is like a street, a dangerous New York street. You pick a lane, and don't you let anyone cut you off.' You can't cut me off, Arthur. No one can. | „ |
| ~ Jackie trying to intimidate Arthur Branch. |
Jackie Scott is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Bitch". She is a billionaire cosmetics mogul who murders her stockbroker to cover up illegal stock trades she made.
She was portrayed by Lucie Arnaz.
Early life[]
Jackie started her cosmetics business, Jackie Scott Enterprises, with a loan from her wealthy father, who raised her to be ruthlessly competitive and destroy anyone who challenged her or got in her way. She grew her business into an empire that was worth billions and became a household name in the cosmetics industry. She also made influential friends in New York City's political elite, including District Attorney Arthur Branch. She employed her daughter, Lindsay, as a photographer, and her boyfriend Brad Osterhouse as her accountant; she also began sleeping with Osterhouse behind Lindsay's back.
In 2002, she made several illegal stock trades, selling shares of an oil company after receiving insider information that the stock was about to tank. She asked Osterhouse to cover up the illegal trades, but he refused, so she killed him with his own golf club to conceal the fraud and preserve her reputation in the business community.
"Bitch"[]
While investigating Osterhouse's murder, NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green question Jackie about her daughter's whereabouts when the crime was committed. She says that Lindsay was with her that entire day preparing for a photo shoot and tries to steer their investigation toward Osterhouse's other clients. Eventually, however, Briscoe and Green discover that Jackie supplied them with a false alibi and that Osterhouse was involved with both Lindsay and Jackie. Lindsay says that she killed Osterhouse, and Jackie gets her a high-priced lawyer and tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade Branch to drop the charges against her daughter.
Branch is skeptical that Jackie, whom he has always seen to be a cold and distant parent to Lindsay, would stick her neck out for her daughter solely out of love, so he has Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn tap her phone to hear more conversations between them. The recordings reveal that Jackie thanking Lindsay for making a false confession, so McCoy and Southerlyn have her arrested.
Jackie is charged with murder, and her lawyer enters an insanity plea on her behalf, claiming that Jackie was suffering from withdrawal from menopause drug HRT when she killed Osterhouse and did not know what she was doing. McCoy has forensic psychiatrists Elizabeth Olivet and Emil Skoda examine Jackie, with mixed results; Olivet believes that Jackie killed Osterhouse solely to protect her corporate image, but Skoda says that it is possible that HRT withdrawal played some part in the murder. Jackie's lawyer calls Skoda as a witness to back up her "menopause rage" defense, while Olivet testifies for the prosecution that Jackie was completely sane at the time of the murder, and that her only motives were greed and narcissism.
Fearing that she might get away with murder, Branch meets with Jackie, who is so sure that she will be acquitted that she sends her lawyer away so she can talk to him privately. Branch tells her that he will indict Lindsay as an accessory to murder unless Jackie admits what she did, but Jackie refuses. Branch then tells Jackie that, unless she pleads guilty to manslaughter in the first degree, he will personally take over the prosecution and reveal all of her dirty professional and personal secrets in court. Cornered, Jackie accepts the deal, preferring to be known as a murderer than have her reputation as a businesswoman destroyed.
External links[]
- Jackie Scott on the Law & Order Wiki
