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| “ | You know, I think your first husband was right, the way he kept you in line, humiliated you. I think you deserved it. You're such a castrating bitch! | „ |
| ~ Briggs demeaning his wife. |
Roger Briggs is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Bend the Law". He is a pimp, statutory rapist, and child pornographer who tries to use his wife, a Bureau Chief for the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, to hide his crimes.
He is portrayed by Tom Irwin, who also portrayed Adrian Powell in Devious Maids.
Overview[]
Briggs is a real estate agent who is married to Lorraine Maxwell, the Bureau Chief of the DA's office. He is her second husband, her former spouse having been abusive and controlling. He is by all appearances good to her, although it is implied that he only married her for the fortune she received as a divorce settlement from her first husband. His own business is unsuccessful, and he has no money of his own; he lives off a monthly allowance Maxwell gives him, something he quietly resents.
To make his own money, he starts pimping out the teenage "hostesses" he employs at the Diogenes Club, an upscale "gentleman's club" he co-owns, to the other real estate salesmen who frequent it. He also has sex with them and keeps nude pictures of them in his locker. Maxwell has no idea what he is up to, thinking of him as a saint who saved her from her abusive ex-husband.
"Bend the Law"[]
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Briggs has a celebratory breakfast with Maxwell before going to the club for a drink and a massage from a 15-year-old Asian-American girl he had "recruited" from a shopping mall. Just then, the wife of one of the club's members storms in, brandishing a shotgun. She shoots her husband in the crotch as revenge for cheating on her with the club's hostesses. When the police arrive and discover what is going on in the club, they arrest its patrons, including Briggs, for sex trafficking and child sexual abuse.
Briggs calls Maxwell to bail him out of jail and insists that he was only at the club for a drink and had no idea that there was underage prostitution going on there. Maxwell believes him and pays for a high-priced lawyer to defend him.
SVU Captain Olivia Benson handles the investigation, promising Maxwell that she will give Briggs a chance to tell his side of the story. The investigation becomes complicated, however, when another member of the club implicates Briggs in running the sex trafficking ring personally. Briggs denies it, but when the SVU team searches the club, they find naked pictures of the girls in his locker; the girls themselves, meanwhile, tell Benson that Briggs pays them to have sex with him and his friends, and has threatened to show their families the naked photos if they try to go to the police.
Upon learning the full scope of what Briggs has done, Maxwell confronts her husband, who blames her for "emasculating" him by giving him an allowance, and then begs her to make the case "go away". Finally seeing Briggs for who he is, Maxwell tells Benson and Assistant District Attorney Dominick Carisi Jr. to make sure that he goes to prison. Carisi tries to make a deal with Briggs in which he serves a few years in prison, rather than the decades he would face if convicted, in return for his testimony against the other members of the club, but Briggs refuses.
That night, Briggs orders takeout from Maxwell's favorite restaurant and presents her with a romantic dinner when she gets home from work, insisting that they celebrate their anniversary in spite of all that has happened. Maxwell is unmoved, however, and tells him that he will likely go to prison for the rest of his life unless he accepts Carisi's deal. Enraged, Briggs calls Maxwell a "castrating bitch" and says that she deserved to be abused and humiliated by her first husband. While eating his dinner, he suddenly begins choking on his food. Panicked, he signals to Maxwell to give him the Heimlich maneuver, but she refuses, watching impassively as he chokes to death.
Maxwell then calls 9-11 to make it look like she had tried to save him, a scenario that Benson appears to accept - although it is left ambiguous whether she actually believes it or is just going along with it because she thinks that Briggs got what he deserved.
External links[]
- Roger Briggs on the Law & Order Wiki
