Peter Van Wagner

Detective Benson’s (Mariska Hargitay) half-brother Simon Marsden (guest star Michael Weston) turns up in New York after a five year absence, and asks for help – Child Services is threatening to take his children away from him. She asks defense attorney Bayard Ellis (guest star Andre Braugher) to represent her brother, but the seemingly simple case turns into a disaster for Ellis and his client. Meanwhile, a homeless couple finds a newborn baby abandoned near a hospital, and Detectives Fin (Ice-T) and Rollins (Kelli Giddish) follow the evidence to a shocking discovery. Also starring: Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen), Richard Belzer (Sergeant John Munch) and Danny Pino (Detective Nick Amaro).

When a mortician is found murdered in ritualistic fashion, Detectives Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Eames (Kathryn Erbe) first suspect cultists until they investigate a suspicious crematorium - and discover a graveyard of decomposing bodies in a nearby field that were never incinerated. More clues, including a passage in the Bible book of Exodus and DNA evidence, point to the business owner's (guest star Jim Gaffigan) odd association with an efficient mob hitman (guest star Jay O. Sanders). Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance also star.

After the owner of a successful meat company is found butchered in his office, detectives suspect his Russian "mail order bride." In court, defense attorneys try to discredit witnesses on the grounds of cross-racial misidentification.

A college coed is murdered and the crime is meant to look like a rape, though it is later proven that no sexual assault took place. Briscoe and Curtis soon learn that the student was part of a campus call-girl ring and go to arrest the "madame" - who has fled the country. McCoy and Kincaid then target the madame's father, who has helped his daughter work her way through college. Cara Buono (Next Stop Wonderland) and Jame Naughton (The Cosby Mysteries) guest stars.

Twenty years after the death of their mother, a man kills his younger brother; clues lead Goren and Eames through a multitude of assumed identities.