When Ashley Tyler is found raped and beaten in a local community garden, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler initially suspect her drug-dealing uncle, Rick Tyler. After the rape kit identifying the rapist goes missing, a crooked prison guard comes under suspicion. Detective Benson puts herself in great danger as she goes undercover as a prison inmate to catch the predator.

When restaurant manager Dwight Lomax is caught molesting a female employee, he claims that he was following orders from a Detective Milgram over the phone. As detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler delve into the case, they discover Detective Milgram was a hoax by engineer, Merritt Rook. Rook later turns his trial into a media circus by using the courtroom as a soapbox. Rook's courtroom antics set him free, and with a group of followers, detective Benson and Stabler fall prey to another one of Rook's psychological schemes leaving the SVU department vulnerable.