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| “ | I couldn't help it. After your mami left, you were all I had. It's not my fault... I raised you alone. I had needs! | „ |
| ~ Santos making excuses for raping his own daughter. |
Santos Morales is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Redemption in Her Corner". He is the sexually abusive father of Esperanza and Graciela Morales.
He was portrayed by Daniel Zacapa, who also portrayed Detective Diego Garcia in True Memoirs of an International Assassin.
Early life[]
Santos Morales had two daughters, Esperanza and Graciela, with his wife. He was an alcoholic for much of his life, Esperanza later describing him as a "mean drunk". His drinking got so bad that his wife left him, never seeing him or their daughters again. After his wife left, he began sexually abusing his own daughters, keeping them quiet about the abuse by telling them that he had "needs" that he deserved to have satisfied as a reward for raising two daughters alone, and by accusing them of "teasing" him.
When Esperanza was a teenager, she took up boxing so she could fight him off, but Graciela numbed her pain with drugs and alcohol, eventually becoming a prostitute. Santos, meanwhile, eventually quit drinking and opened a daycare center, and told people that Graciela had died of a drug overdose in order to create a sympathetic public image for his business. He was lauded as a pillar of his community, his friends and neighbors being unaware of his crimes. Esperanza, meanwhile, became a star amateur boxer under the tutelage of her coach, Romeo Solís, and cut Santos out of her life; she also refused to tell anyone but Solís, whom she considered a surrogate father, about what Santos did to her and Graciela.
"Redemption in Her Corner"[]
When Esperanza discovers that Solís is sexually abusing Cami Vega, a 16-year-old boxing student, she feels betrayed and heartbroken that her surrogate father is no better than her real one. She confronts Solís, but he merely tells her to mind her own business and cruelly taunts her about the abuse she suffered, saying that he did not want her father's "sloppy seconds". Enraged, Esperanza punches him in the face so hard that he falls over and hits his head on the floor, resulting in his needing to be hospitalized; he later suffers a brain hemorrhage and dies. She is charged with manslaughter, but Officer Kat Tamin of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who often trains with her at Solís' gym, believes her account of Solís abusing Cami and asks SVU Captain Olivia Benson to open an investigation, a request Benson grants.
While Benson and Detective Amanda Rollins interrogate Esperanza at the SVU station house, Santos shows up uninvited and asks to talk to Esperanza. When Tamin tells him he will have to wait, he says to tell her not to say anything without a lawyer present, and leaves. When Tamin visits Esperanza in jail and relays this message, Esperanza becomes angry and defensive and says that she wants nothing to do with her father, notably calling him by his first name instead of "Dad". Tamin, who has seen this kind of behavior before in people who were sexually abused by family members, realizes that Santos molested her, and convinces Benson that SVU needs to investigate him.
Rollins and her partner, Detective Fin Tutuola, visit Santos at his work and ask him about Esperanza. He claims that Esperanza has always rejected his efforts to stay close to her because she is ungrateful for all that he did for her when she was growing up. When Tutuola asks if he and his daughter were ever "too close", Santos indignantly denies ever hurting his daughters, and repeats the lie that Graciela died of a drug overdose. Esperanza says that he is lying about Graciela, but refuses to testify about the abuse, fearing that it will make her look weak.
Tamin and Tutuola find Graciela at a halfway house and tell her that she could help Esperanza by testifying about what their father did to them, but she refuses to talk unless she gets paid for it. She later has a change of heart, however, and agrees to help SVU put Santos in prison.
At their direction, she calls Santos and says that she is afraid that Esperanza will humiliate their family by testifying about the abuse. As intended, this motivates Santos to visit Esperanza in jail - unaware that she is wearing a wire. He tells her to "toughen up" by keeping her mouth shut. Esperanza tearfully and angrily rebuffs that he was only here was because he was scared the world would finally learn he took everything away from his two daughters. Santos at first denies it, and then defends his behavior by saying that he had "needs" after his wife left him. He then leaves and meets with Graciela and says that the abuse was "not his fault". At that moment, Rollins and Tutuola arrive and arrest him for rape and child sexual abuse. He accuses Graciela of betraying him, but Graciela spits in his face and tells him that she hopes he dies in prison.
Santos is then imprisoned for life, while Esperanza makes a deal with Assistant District Attorney Dominick Carisi Jr. to plead guilty to assault and serve two years in prison.
External links[]
- Santos Morales on the Law & Order Wiki
