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| “ | Man, listen, the young ladies feel me. It's not my fault. If they wanna pleasure me, who am I to stop them? | „ |
| ~ Leon Tate rationalizing having sex with underage girls. |
Leon Tate is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Rooftop". He is a sociopath who sleeps with underage girls without telling them that he is HIV-positive.
He was portrayed by Dorian Missick.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Tate was brought up by his mother Alva, who tried to raise him right, but nevertheless failed to curb or control his apparently innate violence and cruelty. He began his criminal career when he was seven years old by torturing and killing neighborhood pets and setting fires, lifelong pastimes that resulted in him being arrested several times. While in prison, he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, also known as sociopathy.
Tate also had a predilection for sleeping with underage girls as young as 14. Detective Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit finally arrested him for forcing a young girl to perform oral sex on him, for which Tate served five years in prison. He contracted HIV from shooting heroin while in prison, but that did not stop him from continuing to prey on underage girls once he was released.
"Rooftop"[]
Two weeks after he is released from prison, Tate charms a 14-year-old girl into coming up with him to the rooftop of the apartment building he lives in with his mother to have sex. Before he can seduce her, however, Stabler and his partner, Detective Olivia Benson, who have been watching him since his release, arrest him for attempted statutory rape. They reveal to his intended victim that he is HIV-positive, and it angers her that he didn't tell her. The detectives are ultimately forced to let him go, however, after the charges are dropped for lack of evidence.
Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot tries to have Tate civilly committed as a dangerous sexual predator, so she has forensic psychiatrist George Huang evaluate him. At the civil commitment hearing, Huang tells Judge Maryln Haynes that Tate is a narcissistic sociopath and sexual predator who derives a sense of power from forcing himself on teenage girls and infecting them with HIV, and that he will continue to do so unless he is institutionalized. Nevertheless, Haynes rules that Tate does not meet the criteria for civil commitment. Tate goes right back to preying on girls, even as Stabler keeps an eye on him, waiting to catch him reoffending.
When a teenage girl in Tate's neighborhood is raped and beaten, Stabler thinks Tate did it, even though the girl says that her rapist called himself "Andre" and lured her by promising her a rap audition, neither of which are part of Tate's M.O. The victim's description of the attack reminds him of a series of unsolved rapes he investigated several years earlier, so he suspects that Tate is guilty of those, as well. Stabler and Detective Fin Tutuola arrest Tate for rape and assault and have him take part in a lineup, but the victims of the earlier rapes do not recognize him, so SVU is forced to let him go.
That night, a girl in Tate's neighborhood is found raped, murdered, and set on fire. He and Benson canvas the area around the crime scene looking for evidence proving Tate's guilt, only to find Tate himself inside his building's water tower, dead of a heroin overdose, hours after another girl turns up killed in the same way as the first. Medical examiner Melinda Warner finds that Tate could not have killed the latest victim, however, as he had died hours before her.
Stabler, Benson, and Tutuola eventually discover that serial killer Malik Harris is responsible for the murders, for which he is eventually found guilty and executed.
Trivia[]
- Tate is partly inspired by David Selepe, a suspect in the serial murders attributed to Moses Sithole, who was killed by police in a standoff.
External links[]
- Leon Tate on the Law & Order Wiki
