  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | I'm sorry about your friend. As for Victor, he got what he deserved. | „ |
| ~ DeSantis coldly dismissing the murder of James Coe |
Leslie DeSantis is a supporting antagonist in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Folly". She is the madam of a male escort service who allows her escorts to be brutalized and even killed by serial sexual predators Gary and Darlene Sutton, and who sexually abuses and disfigures one of her employees, Tommy Dowd.
She was portrayed by Patricia Kalember.
Overview[]
DeSantis runs Man About Town Escort Service, providing young, male, high-priced "companionship" to wealthy, older women. She publicly claims that her escorts merely act as "arm candy" for high society functions and that she has a policy of firing any escorts and/or clients who have sex with each other during a "date". In reality, however, she makes a fortune by selling her escorts for sex.
She also has a sexual relationship with one of her escorts, Tommy Dowd, even though he has no real interest in her; he reluctantly allows her to have sex with him because he needs to money to support his widowed mother. She also extorts sex from him by loaning him money and demanding sex in return; she does the same thing with two more of her escorts, Victor Coe and Gregory Moore.
In "Folly"[]
When Tommy is attacked and beaten by an unidentified man and woman after the woman paid him for sex, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit ask DeSantis if she helped orchestrate a "couples date" between Tommy and his assailants, who also raped and tortured another man using the same M.O. DeSantis insists that her escorts are not allowed to have sex with the clients, and that she had nothing to do with any arrangement Tommy made with his assailants.
Soon afterward, the mysterious couple attacks and kills Coe and Moore, so Benson and Stabler question her again. She says that she hardly knew Moore, a recent hire, and that she fired Coe for stealing from her, but the detectives suspect that there is more to their relationship.
They talk once again with Tommy, who admits that DeSantis loaned money to him, Moore, and Coe, and demanded sex in return, and that she had threatened to withdraw both their loans when they tried to break off their relationships with her. Benson and Stabler begin to suspect that DeSantis knows who the assailants are and deliberately sends escorts who refuse her sexual demands their way to punish them or get rid of them entirely.
Tommy agrees to wear a wire when DeSantis invites him to her house for sex, while Benson and Stabler listen in a police van parked a block away. Tommy refuses DeSantis' advances, but she only becomes more aggressive - to the point that she discovers the wire after ripping his shirt off. Enraged, she pours a pot of boiling hot water, in which she had been cooking them a spaghetti dinner, over his head, severely disfiguring him. Benson and Stabler arrive too late to save Tommy, but they arrest DeSantis, who spits on Tommy as he lays on the ground, screaming in pain. Stabler informs her that killing a witness to a crime is a capital offense, so if Tommy dies, so will she.
Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot meets with DeSantis and her lawyer at Rikers Island Prison, where the former awaits trial for attempted murder and promoting prostitution. Cabot tells DeSantis that she will spend decades in prison unless she provides the names of the man and woman attacking her clients. DeSantis says that she does not know the couple's real names because they used a different credit card each time, but she does provide Cabot with the numbers of the cards they used, which helps Benson and Stabler track down the assailants, Gary and Darlene Sutton.
While DeSantis does get a plea bargain for helping the investigation, she still receives a lengthy prison sentence for attempted murder and promoting prostitution.
External links[]
- Leslie DeSantis on the Law & Order Wiki
