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| “ | Your case is based on what? What some whores say about me? | „ |
| ~ Rostov disparaging the women he trafficked. |
Karl Rostov is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Fallout". He is a Russian human trafficker based in New York City who is targeted by Nikolas Brezin, the vengeful father of one of the teenage girls he trafficked.
He was portrayed by Michael Aronov.
Biography[]
Rostov, alongside his brother Peter, is a Russian businessman based in New York. The two of them ran a large-scale human trafficking operation where teenage girls in Russia were lured to New York, only to have their passports confiscated before being confined to a single apartment in Manhattan and forced into prostitution, with the brothers moving them into a different building every few months. The brothers kept their victims in line with regular beatings and rapes, including violating them with their guns.
One of their victims was Nadia Brezin, the daughter of Moscow police officer Nikolas Brezin, who was kidnapped at the order of Peter Rostov in order to blackmail Brezin. She was held at the Manhattan apartment with the other victims until she escaped out the window one night and used a payphone to call her father. She managed to tell him her location before being recaptured by the Rostovs, who brought her back to the apartment and raped her in front of everyone in order to teach them a lesson about trying to escape. The brothers then ordered Peter's bodyguard, Alex Chambers, to kill Nadia; however, Alex had fallen in love with Nadia and instead took her back to his home and kept her safe, telling the Rostovs she was dead.
The brothers later went to the Mirror Club to meet a porn director about the possibility of forcing their girls to appear in her films. However, unbeknownst to them, Nikolas Brezin was also at the club, having tracked them there with the intention of killing them out of revenge for Nadia's presumed death. While the brothers were occupied, Brezin slipped ricin poison into their drinks just before they were delivered; Peter drank his, but Karl's drink was spilt by mistake, saving his life. Karl stayed at the club for an hour after the meeting was over and noticed Brezin staring at him, but didn't think anything of it. He then spent the rest of the weekend hitting various clubs around New York while his brother was dying from ricin poisoning until a message from Peter's wife eventually got through telling him Peter had died.
"Fallout"[]
Karl is questioned by NYPD Homicide Detectives Ed Green and Nina Cassady about his brother's death. The detectives ask him about Anna Sakalov, a woman Peter was seen with several times on the day he died (unbeknownst to them, she is the brother's latest trafficking victim), and Karl tells them that Peter brought her up to his apartment and he left them alone together for a while, claiming Anna was a woman Peter was cheating on his wife with. Karl's alibi for his brother's death checks out and the detectives do not consider him a suspect.
However, Green and Cassady, thinking Anna could be a key witness in Peter's murder, continue to search for her and eventually track her to the brother's latest hideout, discovering a number of women being held captive, including Anna, who tells them that Peter kidnapped and raped her before forcing her to become a prostitute; she also mentioned that the brothers killed Nadia, but refuses to elaborate on who that is.
Karl is arrested for human trafficking and interviewed by Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Connie Rubirosa. He initially denies any knowledge of his brother's operations and disparages the victims as "whores", also claiming not to know who "Nadia" is. However, McCoy and Rubirosa threaten to pin Peter's murder on him unless he starts talking, and offer him a deal for 20 years in prison rather than life if he helps them. Karl admits his involvement in trafficking and tells them about the meeting at the Mirror Club on the night Peter was poisoned, remembering the "novenkiy" he saw watching him after Peter left. Surveillance footage identifies Brezin, and the revelation that he has a missing daughter named Nadia leads the detectives to realize he is targeting the Rostovs in revenge for Nadia's death (as neither he nor the police know she is still alive).
Later, while building a case against Brezin, McCoy calls Karl to testify about the trafficking operation in front of a grand jury in order to establish Brezin's motive for the murder. Karl testifies in as much detail as possible about the operation in expectation of receiving his promised 20-year sentence; however, as he leaves court he is approached by a group of Russian police officers who seize him and drag him away to a nearby car. As Karl protests, McCoy reveals that he had agreed to extradite Karl to Russia for trial in exchange for Brezin, who has taken refuge in the Russian consulate, being turned over to the NYPD; the grand jury hearing was to get Karl's testimony on the record so they could still use it against Brezin. Despite his lawyer's objections, Karl is successfully extradited to Russia, where he is swiftly convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life in the harsh Russian penal system.
External links[]
- Karl Rostov on the Law & Order Wiki
