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| “ | This is what you wanted... you begged for it, bitch! | „ |
| ~ Alex Merritt while raping Elizabeth Olivet. |
Dr. Alexander J. "Alex" Merritt is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Helpless". He is a sadistic gynecologist who sexually abuses his patients, including forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet.
He was portrayed by Paul Hecht, who also portrayed Robert Sidarsky in the Law & Order spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and voiced Emperor Palpatine in the radio dramatizations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Biography[]
Past[]
Merritt is a well-respected gynecologist with an award-winning practice. Behind that façade, however, he is a sadist who sexually abuses the women he treats. He abuses the women in his personal life, as well; he regularly beat and tortured his first wife for six years until she finally left him, and abused his second wife until she committed suicide.
After he rapes his patient Diane Perkins, she tells her psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, about the assault. Unsure whether Perkins, who is severely mentally ill, is telling the truth, Olivet schedules an appointment with Merritt to find out for herself if Merritt behaves inappropriately with patients.
"Helpless"[]
Merritt sexually molests Olivet during an examination, and when she tells him to stop, he tries to intimidate her by suggesting she be screened for cervical cancer. Olivet goes to her friend, NYPD Detective Mike Logan, and tells him what happened. Logan and his partner, Sergeant Phil Cerreta, investigate. While they find that Merritt has a history of sexual sadism, including performing vaginal surgery without anesthetic and holding a membership in an S&M club, they tell Olivet that they do not have enough evidence to arrest him.
Frustrated, Olivet goes back to Merritt's office for another exam with a tape recorder in her purse, hoping to gather evidence of his inappropriate behavior. This time, he injects her with a paralytic that renders her unable to move, and rapes her while she lies, powerless, on his exam table. Armed with the recording of the assault, Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette have Logan and Cerreta arrest Merritt for rape.
During the trial, Merritt claims that he and Olivet had consensual rough sex, and his lawyer, Danielle Melnick, reveals that Olivet treated one of Merritt's patients, ultimately forcing her to admit that she had gone to Merritt's office to spy on him. Merritt's nurse, Miriam Gregg, lies on the witness stand, claiming that Olivet had flirted with Merritt before her first examination. The jury finds Merritt guilty of rape in the first degree, but the judge sets aside the verdict, opining that Olivet had illegally acted as an agent of the police.
Determined to put Merritt in prison, Stone and Robinette research Gregg's past and find two arrests on drug charges, and they deduce that she is helping Merritt rape his patients in return for drugs. When they threaten Gregg with prison, she admits helping Merritt rape women, but says that he raped Perkins on his own.
Stone and Robinette confer with Olivet, who says that Merritt cannot help bragging about his conquests. This gives Stone an idea: he has Logan and Cerreta arrest Merritt for raping Perkins, and alerts the media, who film him bragging about how much women respect him. This provokes dozens of his victims to call the D.A.'s office and report what he did to them. Stone and Robinette confront Merritt with this evidence, leaving him no choice but to accept a sentence of life in prison.
Trivia[]
- Merritt is reportedly inspired primarily by numerous doctors convicted of sex offenses, including Young Soo Koo, Ivan Namihas, and Kimble Mcnair.
External links[]
- Alex Merritt on the Law & Order Wiki
- Alex Merritt on the Pure Evil Wiki
