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| “ | Just because I kill people, doesn't mean I'm a liar. | „ |
| ~ Sirenko testifying in court |
Maxim "Mark" Sirenko (Russian/Chechen: Максим Сиренко) is the secondary antagonist of "Gimme Shelter", a three-part crossover episode of Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Organized Crime. He is a Russian gangster who pimps out and murders a young girl and commits a terrorist bombing.
He was portrayed by Beau Knapp, who also portrayed Knox in Death Wish.
Early life[]
Sirenko was born and raised in Chechnya, where he was a small-time gangster in the Russian mafia, working for corrupt Russian Army general and crime boss Daniel Rublev. He immigrated to New York City, where he opened a nightclub that he used as a front business for his drug trafficking and prostitution rackets, as well as occasionally committing extortion and armed robbery on Rublev's orders.
Rublev set Sirenko up in the fentanyl trade, which eventually attracted the attention of the NYPD's Organized Crime Unit, led by Detective Elliot Stabler, who assigned confidential informant Vincent Lowe to help him investigate Sirenko.
Appearances[]
"Gimme Shelter Pt. 1"[]
Rublev orders Sirenko to kill Ava Marchenko, a 15-year-old Ukrainian prostitute who had secretly recorded him drunkenly bragging about the bombing. Sirenko, wearing a mask, chases Ava down and shoots her dead in front of NYPD Detective Frank Cosgrove, who becomes obsessed with getting justice for the murdered girl. Cosgrove and his partner, Detective Jalen Shaw, confront Sirenko at his house, unknowingly jeopardizing Stabler's investigation. After a few heated arguments, Stabler and Cosgrove grudgingly see each other's dedication and decide to work together to bring Sirenko down.
Stabler sends Lowe to Sirenko's club wearing a wire, in hopes of getting Sirenko to incriminate himself, but Sirenko shoos him away. Lowe later spies on Sirenko talking to one of his men and clones his cell phone, but Sirenko catches him and beats him up. He nevertheless manages to get the phone to Stabler, who discovers that it contains security footage from Sirenko's yacht of the gangster consorting with underage prostitutes.
With help from the Special Victims Unit, led by Stabler's former partner, Captain Olivia Benson, Stabler and Cosgrove connect Sirenko to Sam Ellis, a pimp who traffics young girls. Benson, Stabler, and Cosgrove raid Ellis' house, arresting her and rescuing Nicole Merrick, one of the girls she is exploiting. They also find bomb-making materials, which gets the Joint Terrorism Task Force involved in the investigation.
"Gimme Shelter Pt. 2"[]
Nicole identifies Sirenko as having chased after Ava. Benson, Stabler, and Cosgrove lead a raid of Sirenko's house, where they find bomb-making materials capable of inflicting mass casualties, although Sirenko himself is long gone. Stabler sends Lowe to a meeting with Sirenko wearing a wiretap so he can get enough evidence to arrest him, but Sirenko suspects Lowe of betraying him and kills him.
Benson, Stabler, Cosgrove, and Detective Amanda Rollins investigate and find out that Sirenko had blackmailed one of his customers into giving him information on a hotel in Manhattan that is set to host a United Nations summit on the war in Ukraine. The detectives realize that Sirenko is going to bomb the hotel, and have the building evacuated. Cosgrove sees Sirenko escaping and pursues him, but when the bomb explodes, Sirenko uses the ensuing chaos to escape. When Stabler and Rollins find Sirenko, he takes several hostages in a department store, threatening to kill all of them unless the police give him a vehicle he can use to flee the city. Stabler manages to subdue him, and appears ready to kill him to avenge Lowe, but Cosgrove and Shaw manage to talk him down and arrest Sirenko unharmed. Unfortunately, however, they discover that three hotel employees were killed in the explosion.
"Gimme Shelter Pt. 3"[]
Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price charges Sirenko with five murders in addition to terrorism and sex trafficking. He and Assistant District Attorney Samantha Maroun interview Nicole, and use the information she provides to connect Sirenko to Rublev. Stabler and Price interrogate Sirenko's lieutenant, Andre Lenkov, who provides them with a recording of Rublev bragging about his plan to bomb the hotel to Ava and Nicole. Price and Maroun's boss, District Attorney Jack McCoy, has Rublev arrested, and tries him alongside Sirenko.
When Rublev's lawyer persuades the trial judge to exclude the recording as evidence and Rublev's men try to kill Nicole, Price and Maroun are left with no choice but to make a deal with Sirenko so he can testify against his boss. Sirenko tells them about killing Ava, whom he disrespectfully dismisses as "some hooker", and his lawyer demands that they dismiss the terrorism charges, which means Sirenko would be out of prison in 20 years. Sirenko testifies against Rublev, who is ultimately murdered by assassins working for Russian President Vladimir Putin, about whom Rublev had offered to disclose Russian state secrets in return for leniency. Sirenko, meanwhile, goes to prison for 20 years, as agreed, and his trafficking ring is unraveled.
Trivia[]
- Sirenko's trafficking of Ava is likely derived from the sex trafficking and suicide of Danguolė Rasalaitė, a Lithuanian teenage girl smuggled into Sweden to exploit her for prostitution. Danguolė jumped off a bridge in 2000 and died days later in hospital.
- Sirenko shooting Ava in the street is likely derived from the unsolved recent murder of Tioni Theus, a black-American teenager who was shot in her neck and left on the side of a public road, after reportedly being sexually trafficked, which was likely a precursor of her murder.
External links[]
- Mark Sirenko on the Law & Order Wiki
