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| “ | The broad hit me! It was an accident. I don't know from arson, this guy Randall, or anything else! It's all just a fluke! | „ |
| ~ McDugan denying his part in a conspiracy to kill Karen Whatney |
Michael "Crazy Mike" McDugan, Jr. is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Menace". He is a petty criminal who murders a woman on the orders of her corrupt former boss.
He was portrayed by John Ellison Conlee, who also portrayed the young Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.
Early life[]
McDugan was a lifelong criminal and neighborhood bully, regularly getting in fights and terrorizing his neighbors, at one point chasing a 14-year-old boy out of the street simply because he didn't like the boy's grandfather. He made his living as hired muscle, beating and threatening people at the behest of other small-time criminals.
He was arrested five times for assault and was twice convicted, spending several years in prison as a result. When he was released, he moved in with his disabled father, Mike Sr., but he went right back to antagonizing his neighbors and beating people up for money.
Shortly before the events of the episode, he was approached by his former cellmate, arsonist-for-hire Dave Randall, aka "Randall the Candle", with a job - to kill Karen Whatney on behalf of her former boss, Robert Dorning, because she had evidence that he burned down his own factory for the insurance fraud.
McDugan took the job and stalked Whatney in his car to the Brooklyn Bridge. He then deliberately crashed into her car and dragged her out by the hair. She managed to get away from him, but he chased her, tearing off her shirt as she fled. In a blind panic, Whatney jumped from the bridge to get away from McDugan, falling to her death in the process.
"Menace"[]
NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis investigate Whatney's death as a murder after witnesses describe a large, angry man chasing her before she fell. Descriptions of the man's car lead them to McDugan, who is drinking in a local bar with his father. Briscoe and Curtis ask him to accompany them to their precinct to answer some questions about Whatney's murder, but he refuses and attacks them, for which they arrest him.
McDugan testifies in his own defense that even while he insists that Whatney hit his car and died as a result of a drunken fall as she fled the scene of the "accident". He also intimidates one of the witnesses into perjuring himself that Whatney was drunk at the time of the accident. As a result, Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Jamie Ross fail to indict McDugan for murder, having to settle for a minor assault charge.
While McDugan is out on bail, Randall calls him and tells him to leave town. That night, however, he is arrested once again for murder, McCoy and Ross having found out about his ties to Randal and Dorning. They offer McDugan a reduced sentence for second-degree murder in return for his testimony against Dorning. He says he knows nothing about Dorning, but he does tell them about Randall warning him off. This serves to incriminate Dorning, as he is the only person who could have told Randall that the police were on to him. Thanks to this information, McCoy and Ross are able to convict Dorning of murder.
McDugan is then sentenced to 25 years in prison.
External links[]
- Mike McDugan on the Law & Order Wiki
