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"Deception"
SVU, Episode 4.02
Production number: E3105
First aired: 4 October 2002
  th of 502 produced in SVU  
th of 502 released in SVU
  th of 1271 released in all  
Kyle Fuller Gloria Stanfield Deception
Written By
Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters

Directed By
Constantine Makris

Summary[]

A child's painting leads detectives to investigate a mother for possible abuse of her teenage stepson. When the boy's father is murdered attention shifts to the boy himself, while his stepmother tries to protect him and prevent the investigators from learning the truth.

Plot[]

Benson and Stabler are at an elementary school, interviewing a five-year-old girl named Chloe, who has drawn a picture of her family that shows her crying. Benson asks her why she is crying and she says it is because her mother loves her seventeen year old half-brother Kyle more than her, and that she once caught them in bed together without any clothes on. The teacher warns Stabler that Chloe’s father, Lawrence Fuller, is a wealthy business man and has a temper, and that Chloe’s mother, Gloria Stanfield, is a minor actress, and that they are both a handful.

At the hospital, the doctors say that Chloe’s injuries which had first gotten the teacher worried are just the usual scrapes and bruises a child gets, and when her father comes to pick her up he says that the old fractures the doctors found are from when she fell when she was three. Benson and Stabler ask him whether he has noticed anything strange about his wife's relationship with his son, and he says no. He tries to deny what his daughter has told them, but starts to consider it after thinking back before he takes Chloe home.

Munch and Tutuola go to speak to Kyle at his school, and he denies any inappropriate relationship with his stepmother, but the detectives aren’t convinced. The Fuller's housekeeper reluctantly admits that she once caught Gloria kissing Kyle inappropriately. When Benson and Stabler are summoned to Gloria's lawyer's office to meet her, she denies any relationship with Kyle.

Later, the detectives are called to a disturbance at Chloe’s school and find Gloria and Lawrence arguing. Lawrence accuses Gloria of molesting his son, while Gloria accuses him of being violent with the kids. Benson takes Chloe away and Stabler informs her parents that the kids will be placed in the custody of the state until the matter is resolved. When Munch and Tutuola go to Kyle’s school to pick him up, they find he is already gone. They talk to some of his friends who reveal that Gloria likes to flirt with them and that they wouldn’t necessarily be surprised to find out that Kyle was sleeping with her.

The detectives get a call that evening and find out that Lawrence Fuller has been murdered in his apartment, bashed with a baseball bat found underneath Kyle's bed. Gloria and Kyle are both missing, but Kyle soon shows up at the building and claims that he just went for a walk and knows nothing about the murder or where Gloria is.

Gloria shows up at the station with a lawyer for Kyle, and talks to Benson and Stabler. She says that Lawrence and Kyle were fighting and she couldn’t take it, so she left and went to a hotel, but she stops short of implicating Kyle. She says that she has no motive for murder herself, because before she got married, Lawrence, who assumed she was probably a gold-digger, got her to sign a prenuptial agreement which means she gets nothing, and all the money goes into trusts for Kyle and Chloe.

When Kyle’s prints are the only one’s found on the murder weapon, he is arrested and charged, but he is released on bail. The detectives get a warrant for Gloria’s hotel room, hoping to find the clothes Kyle was wearing when he killed his father. The clerk at the hotel tells them that Gloria left for the airport with a young man that sounds like Kyle, and by the time the detectives find out that they took a flight to Washington D.C., they have already returned.

They go to the hotel room and find Kyle and Gloria in bed together having sex. Kyle reveals that they are now married. When interviewed, Gloria insists that nothing happened between them until Kyle was 17, so she has done nothing illegal. The result of their marriage is that neither can now testify against each other because of spousal privilege.

Kyle’s bail is revoked because he fled the jurisdiction, if only briefly. Cabot finds that the marriage is valid under Virginia state law, where a minor can marry with the permission of a guardian, even if that guardian is the person they are going to marry.

Outside the court there are many reporters who have caught onto the story and want a comment, and one asks a question about Gloria’s pregnancy. Stabler and Benson drag him aside to ask about the pregnancy (which they didn’t know about) and the reporter reveals that Gloria is three months pregnant and took Kyle with her to the doctor’s appointment. Benson and Stabler tell Gloria that they need a paternity test, and she says that she will have her lawyer arrange it. The test shows that neither Kyle nor Lawrence are the father. Benson receives a call and is told that Gloria is in the hospital and is claiming that she was raped. She says that it was Frank Barbarossa, her former lover, whom she says admitted to killing Lawrence out of spite and who threatened to do the same to her.

Frank is arrested and they find out that he is a personal trainer and had a one hour session with a client in the Fuller’s apartment building, however there is an extra half and hour which he spent in the building after the session was over. He denies that he had anything to do with Lawrence’s death.

The detectives look into his phone records and find that someone named Frank Barbarosa at the time of the murder from the deli across the street. The deli owner confirms that Gloria was in the deli that night and made two calls from the payphone. Meanwhile, the lab technician tells Benson and Stabler that the sperm in Gloria’s rape kit is Frank's, but must have been frozen, because the tails are broken. They realize that Gloria faked the rape.

Frank wants to implicate Gloria, for a deal, and he admits that he killed Lawrence Fuller. He says that Gloria gave him the security code for the apartment and told him to use the baseball bat to set up Kyle, but he is unable to offer any corroborated proof that would really implicate Gloria.

The detectives figure out that the second call which Gloria made from the deli must have been to Kyle, telling him to get out of the apartment. They realize that Kyle is willing to take the fall in order to protect Gloria, and that if he goes free from jail, his life may be in danger because, as his wife, Gloria has access to the trust fund, which now includes the vast fortune Kyle inherited from Lawrence after his murder, and might kill him, as well.

Cabot then decides to drop her case against Kyle, so long as he testifies against Gloria, and will then use Frank's testimony to further implicate her in the murder. Benson and Stabler visit Kyle in jail and try to convince him that Gloria is setting him up. He is finally convinced when he finds out that the baby is Frank's, not his. Kyle says that Gloria called him the night of the murder, and told him she’d take care of everything.

Benson and Stabler catch up with Gloria outside a family planning clinic, as she is intending to abort her pregnancy. Kyle steps out of their car to confront Gloria and to tell her that he does not believe her lies anymore and will testify that she illegally had sex with him when he was a minor and that she hired Frank to kill his father. Gloria tries to plead with him but he hands her divorce papers, thus removing spousal privilege and revoking Gloria's access to Kyle's trust fund, while bitterly calling her "Mom". The detectives arrest her for first-degree murder.

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Recurring cast[]

Guest cast[]

References[]

Quotes[]

Stabler: Says his behavior got worse: loss of appetite, sudden outbursts, fighting. That was the same year his father married Gloria Stanfield.
Cragen: Could be adjusting to his stepmother.
Munch: Or, stepmother pulled a Woody Allen back then.

[after finding Lawrence Fuller dead and the house empty]
Munch: Where's the rest of the Addams Family?
Stabler: MIA.

Schaefer: Mr. Fuller has been very cooperative with you, so unless you plan on arresting him, we're leaving.
Tutuola: Kyle Fuller, stand up.
Because we're planning on arresting you.: What for?Kyle Fuller
{{{8}}}: Munch

Munch: [arresting Kyle Stanfield] You have the right to an attorney. You want my advice? Don't take one that's on your mother's payroll.

Kyle Stanfield: We don't have to say anything to you. We're married now.

Gloria Stanfield: I never abused him. We're in love.
Stabler: You're in love with a boy you've raised since he was 10 years old? Sweetheart, that's not love. That's pedophilia.

Judge Ridenour: [on Kyle's marriage to Gloria] Whether or not the defendant intended to avoid prosecution, he violated his bail agreement. Bail is revoked. Defendant is remanded. Congratulations on your nuptials, young man.

Reporter: You know what? Don't give me this intimidation crap. First Amendment, kids. I'm a journalist.
Benson: For the "National Probe". That's a real respectable publication.

Benson: [to Gloria Stanfield] We heard you made an appointment. Family Planning Services? You're getting rid of the baby too. Guess nobody's safe around you.

Stabler: [to CSU Trevor] We got your message. There's something wrong with our DNA sample?
Burt Trevor: What did you do to my sperm?
Benson: Not a thing.

Benson: I had my lawyer do this. It's for you.
Benson: Petition for divorce, Gloria. You're gonna be a free woman.
Stabler: Not for long, though. You're under arrest for murder.
Gloria: You don't know what you're doing, Kyle.
Kyle: No. I know exactly what I'm doing..."Mom".

Background information and notes[]

Episode scene cards[]

1 2 3

Hunter Academy
771 Madison Avenue
Tuesday, September 17

Schaefer, Rodewald & Ward
132 East 57th Street
Tuesday, September 17

Fuller/Stanfield Residence
706 Fifth Avenue
Wednesday, September 18

4 5 6

Arraignment
Part 43
Thursday, September 19

Sienna Hotel
26 Central Park West
Thursday, September 19

Arraignment
Part 43
Friday, September 20

7 8 9

Rikers Island
Interview Room
Friday, September 20

Crime Lab
One Police Plaza
Tuesday, September 24

Brennan's Deli
709 Fifth Avenue
Wednesday, September 25

Previous episode:
"Chameleon"
"Deception"
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Season 4
Next episode:
"Vulnerable"
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