Tommy Beltran

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“	When she told me that I should see other girls, that she would see other men... it was like the night my mother died. Something just exploded, blazing in my head.	„
	~ Beltran making excuses for murdering Beth Milgram

Tommy Beltran is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Forgiveness". He is a college student who murders his girlfriend after she breaks up with him.

He was portrayed by Luis Antonio Ramos.

Early life[]

Beltran grew up in a poor Mexican family in New York City, and spent his childhood picking crops and subsisting on welfare after both of his parents died young. Intelligent and ambitious, he studied hard and got excellent grades, which helped him get a scholarship to Manhattan University. There, he met Beth Milgram, a young white woman from a wealthy family, and they started dating. He wanted to marry her, but not because he loved her; rather, he saw marrying a wealthy white woman and going to work in her family's business as an accomplishment, proof that he had achieved the American dream. Beth's feelings for him, however, were lukewarm, especially because her parents, while polite to his face, believed that he did not "fit in" with an upper-class white family.

Beltran eventually proposed to Beth, but she turned him down, telling him that she was going to study in Italy and that they should see other people. Beltran refused to accept her rejection, believing he was being cheated out of something he had earned. He demanded to come with her and her parents to the airport so he could talk her out of leaving, but she refused. Enraged, he followed her to a going-away party her friends were throwing her, ambushed her as she was leaving, and beat her to death with a lead pipe he had brought with him.

"Forgiveness"[]

While investigating Beth's murder, NYPD Homicide Sergeant Phil Cerreta and Detective Mike Logan question an apparently heartbroken Beltran, who claims that he and Beth were engaged and that her father, Curtis, disapproved of the relationship so much that he hit her when she told him. They briefly suspect Curtis after finding out that he had been the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, but a speeding ticket he received at the exact time of the murder proves his innocence.

Meanwhile, one of Beth's friends tells Cerreta and Logan that Beltran had gotten angry with her after she broke up with him, but he says that she had only ended the relationship to please her father. He then claims to have been volunteering at a homeless shelter on the night of the murder and left at midnight, but when Cerreta and Logan investigate, they learn that he had come back a few hours later to take confession from Father Gregory, the priest who runs the shelter. They also find that fibers from Beltran's sweater are in Beth's bag, which give them enough probable cause to arrest him. Before they can, however, Beltran, who senses that he is about to get caught, walks intro the precinct and confesses to murdering Beth.

Beltran tells Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette, who are prosecuting the case against him, that he had only wanted to say goodbye to Beth, and that he does not remember killing her. His lawyer, Cyrus Weaver, enters an insanity plea on his behalf, claiming that Beltran believed Beth was taking away the happiness and success he had worked so hard for and the stress and grief from that realization drove him temporarily insane.

Robinette does not believe it, however; having also worked and studied his way up from poverty, he thinks that Beltran has planned everything in his life to get ahead, and therefore must have taken the lead pipe with him to commit a premeditated murder. He is proven right when he and Stone get a search warrant for the church where Beltran volunteered, which reveals that the murder weapon was taken from the building's sewer system.

During the trial, Beltran testifies in his own defense about his impoverished upbringing and claims that he had no idea what he was doing when he killed Beth. When Stone cross-examines him, however, he asks Beltran why he had the pipe with him in the first place, a question that Beltran cannot answer. Stone and Robinette nevertheless fear an acquittal, so they offer Beltran a plea bargain in which he serves 10 years in prison; Beltran refuses, convinced that the jury will acquit him. The jury ultimately finds him guilty of Beth's murder, however, and sentences him to 25 years to life in prison.

External links[]

Tommy Beltran on the Law & Order Wiki

Navigation[]

Villains

Exiled: A Law & Order Movie
Gianni Uzielli