On this week’s episode of “Law & Order: SVU,” the acting lieutenant briefed the team on Benson’s ousting. Sister Nina gave Natalya, a young woman belonging to her church a ride away from her apartment building. Benson confronted Barba about reporting her for sleeping with Tucker. Sister Nina then called Benson and told her she was leaving town. After she hung up the phone, she got into a car accident when a van ran her off the road.
Benson met with Tucker and told him someone was after Sister Nina, and someone might be after him too. Father Eugene talked to Rollins about the case at hand. Sonny talked to another priest and got a letter written to Tucker. The priest Finn talked to told him about meetings between Tucker and others who knew sex trafficking was taking place among the church congregation.
Rollins and Finn went to the scene of the accident and found that the van that ran Sister Nina off the road belonged to another church. They found two suitcases in the abandoned van, and one suitcase had clothes in it that a teenage girl would wear. They determined a priest had been driving the van that ran Sister Nina off the road. The priest told Sonny he loved Sister Nina and had asked her to marry him, but she said no.
Natalya was questioned at the hospital by Finn and Rollins, who asked her what the driver of the van looked like. She gave a description and said the man forced her and Sister Nina into the van, telling Natalya that if she ran away he would shoot Sister Nina. Sonny found the deceased body of Sister Nina by the side of the road.
The ME stated that Sister Nina was raped before she was killed. Sonny went to see one of the Fathers but was told he was in mourning and wouldn’t see anyone. Finn parked himself outside the church to monitor who came and left. Two priests drove up but wouldn’t talk to Finn about the case.
Sonny told Barba he had evidence that a local judge had been seen groping a young woman on the subway. The judge was refusing to grant a warrant to help the team investigate the case. Rollins looked up properties Father Eugene was renting, and they had reason to believe his loft was the site of illegal activities. Finn and Sonny went to the loft and met a man named Lance, who was in the loft at the time. He said he was Father Eugene’s personal trainer, and he was then asked to come to the police station for questioning. Sonny and Finn questioned Lance about Father Eugene. Lance’s married girlfriend and a lawyer showed up to find out what was going on. She was told that Lance was living in the loft Father Eugene was paying rent on.
Tucker was informed Eugene was supporting Lance and that Eugene had lied to Tucker and framed him. At the loft, Lance was caught by Sonny and Finn forcing Eugene to be submissive to him. Sonny said Eugene was allegedly using church funds to pay for the loft. Rollins questioned Father Eugene on purchases he made of Internet porn and adult toys. Father Eugene continued to point the finger at Tucker. Sonny told Barba he had been told by Sister Nina that everyone at the church was told to keep quiet about the laws that were being broken. Father Eugene’s boss defended him and said that he had learned his lesson from the sex trafficking crimes being committed. Sonny begged him to come clean if he knew anything about the case. He was told the problem wasn’t the church; it was the NYPD.
Benson and Tucker watched a press conference where the church acknowledged their sins and the NYPD was accused of blackmailing Father Eugene to engage young girls in sex trafficking. The team also watched it at SVU headquarters.
Tucker and Benson discussed what to do next. They were told they were both being thrown under the bus. At the station, the team discussed Father Eugene and Sonny said they had to keep fighting for the affected girls.
Sonny went to see the church and told a Father, as a Catholic, he had something to say to him. He said that during the case he had been going to mass twice a week. The Father admitted he should have protected the girls involved, but he didn’t.
The NYPD dug up bins of files that had been buried outside the church. All the bins contained pictures of young girls being violated by priests. There were also guest lists for every sex trafficking party they held.
At the trial, an adult woman that was a victim of the church when she was a child, testified that they were forced by priests to take their clothes off and allow the priests to touch them and perform sex acts on them. She said all the children they did this to had been instructed not to tell their parents. NYPD cops testified that Tucker knew nothing about the sex trafficking ring the church was running.
At JFK Airport, a Nigerian man was arrested for having sexually abused members of the church when he was a priest. Once the case wrapped up, Benson was allowed to resume her position within SVU. Benson and Tucker congratulated each other on the outcome of the case and Tucker’s name being cleared. Sonny went to church and said a silent prayer.