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“ | It's all on the Internet. You just need to know where to look. | „ |
~ Leary rationalizing his harassment |
Jim Leary is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Human Flesh Search Engine". He is a vigilante who uses his website to orchestrate a murder.
He was portrayed by Rob Corddry, who also portrayed Squirrel Wizard in Robot Chicken, Ron Fox in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, and Mr. Walt House in Rapture-Palooza.
Early life[]
Leary is a community activist who owns and operates FlashPosse.net, a website dedicated to exposing people who commit social misdeeds ranging from littering to animal abuse. Whenever one of his users posts a picture of someone doing something wrong, Leary uses public records to find out who they are and then publicizes their names and contact information, along with messages encouraging people to harass them. One such posting resulted in a woman whose husband had killed himself getting harassing phone calls because Leary published a diary entry in which she admitted to having an affair.
A few years before the events of the episode, one of Leary's subscribers posted a picture of a man texting while driving, so he searched public records and found out that the man's name was Todd Bissell. After Leary doxxed him, Bissell was harassed to the point that someone vandalized his car. Bissell changed his name to Sid Maxwell to escape the harassment and used his new identity to become a successful fashion photographer. Leary kept his information on a password-protected area on the site, however, intent on one day using it to inflict the punishment he was certain that Maxwell deserved.
Maxwell, who was notorious in the fashion world for sexually harassing and assaulting his models, made so many enemies among other photographers and crew members that some of them posted information about him on FlashPosse.net such as his address and the door code to his apartment building. Leary shared this information with subscriber Carrie Sands, a woman with paranoid schizophrenia who regularly posted on the site her delusions about her daughter - who was actually taken from her by Social Services after she tried to turn her into a human sacrifice - being killed by a reckless driver. Sands stalked Maxwell to his home, where she strangled him to death and made it look like an accidental hanging.
"Human Flesh Search Engine"[]
NYPD Homicide Detectives Cyrus Lupo and Kevin Bernard investigate Maxwell's murder and find the incriminating pictures of him on FlashPosse.net. They question Leary, who denies knowing anything about his murder and defends harassing him as a public service; he also refuses to volunteer his subscriber list.
Assistant District Attorney Connie Rubirosa tries to persuade a judge to force Leary to give his subscriber list to the police, to the judge refuses on First Amendment grounds. To get back at the police, Leary posts Bernard's address and phone number FlashPosse.net, resulting in Bernard receiving harassing phone calls and emails. He replies to one of the posts insulting him in hopes of drawing out the killer, and he and Lupo receive so much threatening feedback that it gives them probable cause to question each one of the trolls - including Sands, who confesses to the murder, claiming that Maxwell was murdering people at the behest of the Devil.
After Lupo and Bernard find Maxwell's information in Sands' apartment, they confiscate Flashposse.net's server and find a photo of the doorcode to Maxwell's apartment building, accessed by Sands, with a text encouraging people to "drop by and teach this jerk some manners". Sands is institutionalized, while Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter charges Leary with second-degree murder, saying that he caused Maxwell's death by inciting Sands to kill him and providing her with information she used to do it.
During the trial, Leary tries to discredit Bernard by posting a picture of him in his police academy days with the mother of his son, as well as information proving that he had failed three times to pay child support. He then testifies in his own defense that he is providing a public service by holding people accountable for their actions, and that he had no idea that Sands was violent or delusional.
Meanwhile, Lupo discovers that Leary had been with Sands months earlier when she assaulted a cab driver and called him "the evil spawn of Satan". When Cutter confronts him in court with his lie, Leary protests that he never told her to kill Maxwell. Cutter then asks Leary what he had expected her to do given his knowledge of her mental illness and propensity for violence, a question that leaves Leary speechless.
Fearing that he will be convicted, Leary agrees to plead guilty to manslaughter, and goes to prison.
External links[]
- Jim Leary on the Law & Order Wiki