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| “ | Bitch gets on the stand, the entire world finds out she's a rat. We go down for rape, her career goes down with us. You guys got it figured out, don't'cha? Why do you think she dropped the rape complaint? Because she's a rat, without a spine! | „ |
| ~ Austin Bates bragging to Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler. |
Austin Bates is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Paranoia". He is a corrupt NYPD officer who rapes and tries to kill his commanding officer, Karen Smythe, when she finds out he is working for drug dealers on the side.
He was portrayed by James Hanlon.
Biography[]
Bates is a low-level dispatch officer in the NYPD's 31st precinct, under the leadership of Sergeant Karen Smythe. On the side, he and his fellow officers Michael Towne and Mitch Murray smuggle cocaine for drug kingpin Nicky Farnsworth, taking a percentage of the profits for themselves.
"Paranoia"[]
When Bates finds out that Smythe is an informant for the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau and is working to break up his smuggling operation, he conspires with Towne and Murray to silence her. He attacks and rapes her during the investigation of a robbery that he himself instigated, and then tries to kill her by smothering her with a plastic bag and choking her with a crowbar. He only lets her live after Murray, who did not know Bates was going to harm her, calls for help. He takes her service weapon as a trophy.
Detective Olivia Benson of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who trained with Smythe at the police academy, arrives at the scene with her partner, Detective Elliot Stabler, and briefly question Bates, who pretends to want to help Smythe. He "cooperates" with the SVU squad's investigation to throw them off track, making them believe that Smythe was attacked by a serial rapist who is operating in the area; Bates had used the bag and the crowbar on her to match the rapist's signature. Smythe, meanwhile, knows who raped her, but refuses to help Benson and Stabler's investigation for fear of outing herself as an informant.
DNA evidence proves that Bates and Towne lied in their reports about when they arrived at the scene, so Benson, Stabler, and their fellow Detectives John Munch and Fin Tutuola go to arrest them. Bates threatens to kill Tutuola, but Towne manages to talk him into giving himself up. Bates and Murray are imprisoned, but Towne confesses his role in the drug smuggling to two Internal Affairs detectives and is taken into federal custody, making him unavailable as a witness against Bates and Murray.
A guilt-ridden Murray tells SVU Captain Donald Cragen and Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot that Bates was behind the drug smuggling operation, and identifies Bates as Smythe's rapist. Benson and Stabler interrogate Bates, who brags about "breaking" Smythe and says that she will never testify against him for fear of being exposed as a "rat".
Benson and Stabler connect Bates and Towne to the rape, only to find out that they have been arrested by the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau for corruption, intending to make the rape case go away so they can use them as witnesses. When Benson and Stabler try to intervene, Cabot tells them that the rape case against Bates and Towne is weak, meaning that they are more valuable as witnesses than inmates. Benson and Stabler reluctantly allow Cabot to prosecute Bates and Towne for attempted murder, rather than rape, to make sure they go to prison for the rest of their lives.
External links[]
- Austin Bates on the Law & Order Wiki
