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| “ | Why are you so interested in me? Those pictures turn you on? | „ |
| ~ Teddy taunting Elliot Stabler. |
Teddy Winnock is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Web". He is a teenager who runs his own child pornography website.
He was portrayed by Connor Paolo, who also portrayed Zachary Connor in an earlier SVU episode and voiced Tom Gurney in Bully.
Early life[]
Teddy was molested at the age of eight by his father, Gregory Hensal, who manipulated him into believing that the abuse was an expression of love. Teddy's pregnant mother eventually caught Hensal in the act and had him arrested and imprisoned. Teddy was put in therapy, but the damage was done; to cope with the abuse, Teddy convinced himself that there was nothing wrong with adults touching children sexually.
By his teens, he cut off ties with his father, hypocritically holding him in disdain. He also began performing sex acts on a webcam and uploading them onto a website he called "Teddy's Treehouse," charging his customer base of adult men subscription fees over the dark web. Teddy had even begun molesting his younger brother, Jake after convincing him to go along with it because of the money and gifts he got while withholding this from their mother. With all the money he got, Teddy deluded himself to believe that there was nothing wrong with prostituting himself online, considering himself an "entrepreneur" and believing that his customers loved him.
In "Web"[]
When Jake's school alerts the NYPD's Special Victims Unit that Jake is showing signs of abuse, Detective Elliot Stabler questions Teddy and his mother, and is troubled by Teddy's lack of concern for his brother. They initially accuse his father but the latter was proven innocent. Eventually, the SVU precinct's crime lab analyzes DNA found on Jake's genitals and determines that it is a match to Teddy's.
After Teddy's website is found by one of his classmates, pictures are spread through the school and they gets into a fight, Stabler and Tutuola arrive to separate them. Stabler arrests Teddy while Tutuola learns from the classmate of the site. Stabler believes that Teddy can still be helped, however, so he and FBI psychiatrist George Huang advocate for him to be charged as a juvenile. Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak and U.S. Attorney Donna Geysen threaten to charge Teddy as an adult and put him on the sex offender registry unless he gives up his client list, but Teddy refuses because he would lose all the money that he has made from the site.
The offer is met with refusal, as Teddy refuses to lose his money and "friends". Stabler was going to charge Teddy but his mother and lawyer Trevor Langan beg Stabler to reconsider, promising him they'd get through to him and put Jake somewhere safe. Reluctantly, Stabler gives them the night.
While out on bail, Teddy goes online and asks one of his customers, Ralph Zessner, to help him escape the apartment he shares with his mother and Jake. Soon afterwards, one of Teddy's customers known as GoodFriend22 kidnaps him and holds him prisoner, while also beating and sexually abusing him. The kidnapping was seen in a video and the detectives find it.
Stabler asks his former partner Detective Olivia Benson, who now works in the NYPD's Computer Crimes Division, to help him locate Teddy. Benson and Stabler find Guy Lucas, one of Teddy's subscribers, who is shocked to see Teddy snatched before demanding to be let go. SVU set up a sting in which Lucas contacts the kidnapper's email and locates the kidnapper's address, so Stabler and Detective Fin Tutuola race over there. After subduing and arresting the kidnapper, Stabler finds a bound and gagged Teddy and sets him free, and then takes him to the hospital.
At the hospital, a remorseful Teddy talks with Stabler, acknowledging he was right that his customers were just using him, and that what he did to his brother was wrong. Stabler replies that Teddy's crimes are not entirely his fault, and reunites him with his mother, who forgives him for abusing Jake.
Meanwhile, Geysen agrees to charge Teddy as a juvenile and spare him prison if he identifies and testifies against his clients and gets psychiatric counseling.
Trivia[]
- Teddy is loosely based on Justin Berry, a real-life teenager who was manipulated by online pedophiles into starting his own child pornography website before eventually turning his customer data over to the FBI.
External links[]
- Teddy Winnock on the Law & Order Wiki
