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| “ | My name is Paolo Esteban. I am a citizen of Colombia. I would like to talk to a lawyer. | „ |
| ~ Gaitan giving a false name as he is arrested. |
Javier Lariano Gaitan, aka "El Diablo", is the main antagonist and title character of the Law & Order episode "Prince of Darkness". He is a ruthless assassin for a Colombian drug cartel who is feared throughout the criminal underworld.
He was portrayed by Carlos Sanz.
Early life[]
Gaitan is an assassin who works for a Colombian drug cartel, so feared for his ruthlessness and brutality that criminals in Colombia and the United States refer to him as "El Diablo" and "The Prince of Darkness". He typically kills his victims with machine guns supplied by arms trafficker George Lobrano, and he is known to have killed upwards of 50 people.
When small-time drug smuggler Manuel Ortega impulsively kills cartel member Felix Arias as revenge for sexually harassing his wife Natalie, the cartel tasks Gaitan with killing Ortega and his wife as brutally and publicly as possible in order to send a message to anyone else who would dare to cross them.
In "Prince of Darkness"[]
Gaitan guns down the Ortegas in front of their young daughter, Felice, as the family eats a birthday dinner for Natalie in an expensive restaurant; he then runs out of the restaurant before the other patrons can get a good look at him.
NYPD Homicide Sergeant Phil Ceretta and Detective Mike Logan investigate the murders and connect them to Gaitan, whom the DEA had found to be leaving Colombia for New York City. They also arrest Manuel's boss Ramone Buenaventura, who booked Gaitan's flight to New York and has passports belonging to cartel members in his safe, as an accessory to murder. In return for a reduced charge, Buonaventura tells Ceretta and Logan the location of the hotel he booked for Gaitan. By the time they get there, however, Gaitan has checked out.
Ceretta and Logan look through Gaitan's phone records and see that he called his mistress, Sandra Alvaro, and arrest her for harboring a fugitive after she admits he has been in her apartment since the shooting. She tells them that Gaitan will be at her apartment that afternoon, and they arrest him as he tries to enter the building. As he is taken into custody, he identifies himself as "Paolo Esteban" and demands a lawyer.
Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone tells the detectives that he cannot indict Gaitan without the weapon he used to kill the Ortegas. To make matters worse, Alvaro refuses to testify against Gaitan at a hearing challenging his incarceration, claiming that she only incriminated him because the police threatened her. The judge gives Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette four days to find enough evidence to detain Gaitano.
Ceretta and Logan trace the weapon Gaitan used to kill the Ortegas to Lobrano and set up a meeting with him, with Ceretta going undercover as a criminal with ties to the cartel who wants to buy the same kind of gun. The meeting goes awry, however, when Lobrano accuses Ceretta of trying to cheat him and shoots him in the chest, forcing Ceretta to retire as a detective and take a desk job.
Meanwhile, District Attorney Adam Schiff is pressured by federal authorities to make a deal with Gaitan so he can give them information about the cartel. Gaitan and his lawyer insist on no prison time in return for his information. Refusing to let Gaitan escape punishment, Stone makes a deal with Lobrano - with Ceretta's blessing - to testify against Gaitan in return for a reduced sentence. Lobrano testifies to selling Gaitan the weapon used to kill the Ortegas, while Manuel's mother testifies that Arias had declared that "the prince would come" before Manuel killed him.
Stone and Robinette try to get Alvaro to testify, but she refuses after taking a phone call from Gaitan. Stone persuades the trial judge to allow her grand jury testimony to be used as evidence because she was intimidated as a witness. Alvaro's statement, which proves that Gaitan used "Pablo Esteban" as an alias and admitted to killing the Ortegas, is read into evidence, and the jury ultimately finds Gaitan guilty of second-degree murder. As he is led out of the courtroom, however, he is shot dead by a cartel assassin who claims to be the grieving father of one of Gaitan's victims. By the time Stone and Robinette discover the assassin's real identity, he has fled the country, and Lobrano, Alvaro, Buonaventura, Felice, and Manuel's mother have been murdered, thus eliminating all witnesses against the cartel.
External links[]
- Javier Lariano Gaitan on the Law & Order Wiki
