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| “ | Good luck running on your hamster wheel. | „ |
| ~ Morgan mocking Elliot Stabler's investigation. |
Richard Morgan is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Confidential". He is a wealthy businessman who rapes and murders two women and uses his attorney to cover it up.
He was portrayed by Richard Burgi.
Early life[]
Morgan is the CEO of Richmore Investments, one of New York City's premier investment firms. Unbeknownst to his clients, however, the company is essentially one big Ponzi scheme. Even as he steals innocent people's life's savings, he spends lavishly on himself, particularly his hobby of practicing karate.
On October 19, 1987 - "Black Monday" - the stock market crashed, and Nancy Pierce, a junior associate for the accounting firm doing Richmore's books, discovers Morgan's fraud. She tries to blackmail him into giving her $500,000 so she could buy an apartment and put her boyfriend Daniel Hardy, who worked for Richmore Investments as a janitor, through college. Morgan had no intention of paying, however, so he raped and murdered her and dumped her body in an air vent. Hardy was arrested for the murder, and Morgan testified against him, delivering damning - and false - testimony that leads to the jury to convict Hardy and sentence him to life in prison.
A few days after the murder, Morgan gave his attorney, Ingrid Block, his shadow box in which he kept his various karate belts, to look after for a few days while the building was renovated. Block became suspicious because the building was still being investigated as a crime scene, and she eventually asked Morgan point-blank if he had anything to do with Pierce's murder; he smugly replied that he, in fact, committed it. When a horrified Block said that Hardy had been arrested for the crime, Morgan laughed and said, "I know, isn't it great?". Block was disgusted by Morgan's crime, but she was powerless to do anything about it because lawyer-client confidentiality forbade her from revealing to anyone what he told her. She kept silent, and continued representing Morgan, for the next 22 years.
By 2009, Richmore had grown into a Fortune 500 company, but it lost nearly all of its value when the stock market crashed again, ushering in the Great Recession. Morgan once again scammed his clients, stalling on giving them back their money in order to hide his Ponzi scheme. He also fired everyone in the accounting department to prevent them from discovering his crimes, only to discover that analyst Renee Simmons, who was also his lover, was an informant for the IRS. He raped and murdered her to keep her quiet, and once again gave Block his shadow box for "safe keeping"; Block then realizes that he has killed again.
In "Confidential"[]
When Simmons is reported missing, Captain Don Cragen and Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit search for her in Morgan's building, over his protests. They find her body, and Morgan says that he had laid her and 12 other accountants off, and then tries to steer the investigation toward her ex-husband Matt, who works in the building as a stockbroker and is known to have a temper.
Benson and Stabler's investigation not only clears Matt as a suspect, but turns up evidence of Morgan's Ponzi scheme, which gives him a motive for killing Simmons. They arrest him for grand larceny, fraud, and tax evasion, but he manages to be released on house arrest thanks to Block. Benson and Stabler take him to SVU's precinct house to question him, and he smugly denies having done anything wrong and gloats that he will never see the inside of a prison cell.
Morgan's luck finally runs out, however, when Thomas Rooney, one of Morgan's clients who lost his entire life's savings to Morgan's Ponzi scheme, attacks him and shoots him twice in the chest, killing him instantly. In the aftermath, Block admits that she knew that Morgan murdered Pierce and Simmons, thus exonerating Hardy and allowing him to go free. Benson and Stabler suspect that Block set Morgan up to be murdered by telling Rooney where he would be, but they are unable to prove it.
External links[]
- Richard Morgan on the Law & Order Wiki
