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| “ | Hogan ruined my family, so I wanted to ruin him! My family's ruined because of that bastard! I got even for us, Pop! I got even! | „ |
| ~ John bragging about hacking into the Hogan-Hayes Diabetic Clinic's computer network and causing two deaths. |
John Cook is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Virus". He is a teenage computer hacker who sabotages a medical clinic's computer network and causes two deaths because he blames the clinic for his father's blindness.
He was portrayed by Stivi Paskoski.
Early life[]
John's father Robert suffered from diabetic retinopathy, which eventually caused him to go blind. Robert blamed his doctors at the Hogan-Hayes Diabetic Clinic - especially the head of the clinic, Dr. Robert Cook - for his illness and sued them for malpractice, even though there was nothing they could have done to halt or reverse his condition. The lawsuit was dismissed after multiple doctors testified that neither Cook nor the clinic had been at fault.
Robert refused to believe that Hogan was innocent, however, and spent the next six years hiring lawyers and lobbying Congress and the American Medical Association to go after him and the clinic, all to no avail. His wife eventually tired of his constant tirades against Hogan and divorced him, but John believed that his father had been wronged and began planning to get revenge.
A gifted computer hacker, John joined the "Department of Doom", a group of teenage hackers who vandalized computer networks for fun, so he could get back at the clinic by hacking into and sabotaging their computer network. He finally succeeded by infecting the system with a computer virus that altered several patients' insulin dosages, which resulted in two patients dying and seven falling into comas, all in the course of one night.
"Virus"[]
One of the clinic doctors suspects foul play and makes an anonymous tip to the Homicide Department of the NYPD's 27th Precinct. Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan investigate, initially suspecting that one of the clinic's staff altered the insulin doses. When that does not pan out, they have the department's forensics examiners examine the clinic's equipment, and they determine that someone hacked into the clinic's computer network and infected it with a virus.
Briscoe and Logan consult with the department's computer crimes division and learn of the Department of Doom's campaign of sabotaging computer networks, led by a hacker calling himself "Striker One". Suspecting that the group might be responsible, they question one of its members, threatening to arrest him for vandalism unless he reveals "Striker One"'s identity. He reluctantly complies, and Briscoe and Logan detain John for questioning. After they get a search warrant and find the victims' medical records in John's room, they arrest him for murder.
John's parents hire a lawyer who manages to get the charges dismissed by arguing that Briscoe and Logan performed an illegal search. Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette then have both John and Robert arrested, using the rationale that Robert told his son to sabotage the clinic's network; while they privately doubt that the crime occurred that way, they plan to use the threat of imprisoning Robert to scare John into confessing to what he did.
During the ensuing trial, Robert testifies that neither he nor John sabotaged the network, but his testimony deteriorates into a rambling, paranoid rant about the medical and legal establishment conspiring against him; at one point, he even accuses Stone of being "one of them". Stone and Robinette note John seething with anger as his father testifies, so they devise a plan to use Robert's hold over his son to get John to confess.
Stone and Robinette have a meeting with John and his parents and tell the latter that it is only a matter of time before their son goes to prison. As intended, this provokes another conspiratorial rant from Robert, which in turn provokes John into bragging to his father that he "got even" with Hogan. Horrified and guilt-stricken, Robert tries to take the blame, but Stone is unmoved, leaving John no choice but to plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. At the end of the episode, Stone remarks that John, who is 16, will be lucky if he gets out of prison before he is 40.
External links[]
- John Cook on the Law & Order Wiki
