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Ralph Zessner is an antagonist in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Web". He is a pedophile who colludes with his fellow subscribers to a child pornography website to kidnap the teenage boy who runs the site.
He was portrayed by Drew Battles.
Biography[]
Zessner, who worked as a teacher, was secretly a pedophile who was seeing a therapist about his urges. This evidently didn't do him much good, as he trolled the Internet under the username "FunFella13" trying to solicit young boys for sex. He was also a subscriber to Teddy's Treehouse, a child pornography website run by an underage boy named Teddy Winnock. Zessner and fellow subscribers paid $30 a month to watch videos where Teddy molested his younger brother Jake and were allowed to send Teddy requests to see him perform specific sex acts. Like much of the website's subscriber base, Zessner deluded himself into believing he was in love with Teddy.
"Web"[]
Teddy is arrested by the NYPD's Special Victims Unit for molesting Jake and his website is soon discovered. When he is released into his mother's custody for the night, Zessner hears that he has been released and begins messaging his fellow subscribers to help get him out. Zessner and two other subscribers, Guy Lucas and GoodFriend22, formulate a plan to help Teddy escape and message him to escape out his bedroom window before escaping to "the nest" - the Eagle Plaza Apartments building, where he films his videos - to hide out until help arrives.
The Special Victims Unit discover the subscriber's plot when they monitor the website and see a post by "FunFella13" asking for help getting Teddy out, with "SunshineGuy9000" (Lucas' account) replying that Teddy is at the nest and "help is on the way". T.A.R.U. technician Ruben Morales begins tracking the two accounts and finds FunFella13 on a teenage soccer forum trying to pick up young boys. Morales and Detective Elliot Stabler message him pretending to be a 15-year-old virgin named Brad who is interested in having sex with an older man and arrange to meet up with FunFella; when Zessner arrives at the meeting with a pack of condoms, Detective Fin Tutuola arrests him for soliciting sex from a minor.
In interrogation, Zessner denies all wrongdoing, but soon caves when Stabler reveals that they found the payment records, showing he is a subscriber to Teddy's Treehouse and reveals the supposed boy he was talking to was actually a cop. He then admits to being "sick" but claims his urges are merely fantasies, to the disbelief of Stabler and Tutuola, and offers to tell them where the nest is if they give him immunity from prosecution. Stabler angrily retorts that he will not make a deal and threatens to send the chat logs between Zessner and "Brad" to Zessner's family and employer unless he helps them. Panicked, Zessner gives in and directs them to Eagle Plaza; however, when they get there they find that Teddy has been kidnapped by GoodFriend22 (the "help" referred to in Lucas' reply to Zessner), who wants to have Teddy to himself. Zessner is then presumably imprisoned for child pornography and solicitation.
External links[]
- Ralph Zessner on the Law & Order Wiki
