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| “ | Obey me or die. | „ |
| ~ Mike Jergens' signature line when he rapes women. |
Dr. Mike Jergens is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Starved". He is a serial rapist who physically and emotionally abuses his girlfriend Cora Kennison until she falls into an irreversible coma, and then advocates to take her off of life support to prevent her from ever testifying against him.
He was portrayed by Dean Cain, who also portrayed Curtis Banks in Criminal Minds, Curtis Knox in Smallville, Marc Shelley in God's Not Dead and Ted Stein in The Dog Who Saved... franchise.
Biography[]
Overview[]
Jergens is a surgeon who leads a secret life as a serial rapist, finding his victims through speed dating. Once he decides who he wants to victimize, he stalks her until he knows her routine, and then breaks into her home while wearing a mask and rapes her, saying, "Obey me or die" during the assault.
He has a long-term girlfriend, Cora Kennison, whom he treated after her abusive ex-boyfriend attacked her. He degrades and abuses her to the point that she develops a drinking problem and starves herself in hopes of living up to his ideal of a perfect female body, eventually developing bulimia.
"Starved"[]
Jergens' latest victim tells Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit hat she thinks she met her rapist at a speed dating event, so Benson goes undercover and meets Jergens, who asks her for another date. She goes out with him and notes that he tries to control her every move, right down to the drink she orders. She turned down his advances, playing to forensic psychiatrist George Huang's profile of the rapist as a narcissistic control freak who cannot stand to be told no. Jergens follows her to her apartment, intent on raping her later, but Stabler, who has been shadowing the "date", arrests him.
After Jergens is released for lack of evidence, Benson questions Cora, who had given him an alibi that neither she nor Stabler believe. After Benson tells Cora that Jergens had said that he did not really love her, a heartbroken Cora reveals that Jergens had told her to lie that he was with her during the time of each rape. Soon afterward, however, Jergens marries Cora to keep her from testifying against him. Benson nevertheless convinces her that Jergens is guilty, so she testifies against him.
Soon afterward, however, Cora suffers a massive stroke as a result of her eating disorder and alcohol abuse, lapsing into a persistent vegetative state - and leaving her prior testimony against Jergens unusable at trial. Jergens fears that she will eventually regain consciousness and testify against him, however, so he petitions to have her feeding tube removed. Jergens testifies in court that he and Cora had witnessed an accident in which the victim had suffered irreversible brain damage, and that Cora had told him she would never want to live in such a state.
Ultimately, the trial judge agrees to have Cora's feeding tube removed. Jergens then revealed that he had taken out a life insurance policy on Cora just before she fell into a coma, one that he is now eligible to collect. Before he can do so, however, he is imprisoned for multiple counts of rape.
External links[]
- Mike Jergens on the Law & Order Wiki
