.
- In the criminal justice system,
sexually based offenses
are considered especially heinous.
In New York City, the dedicated detectives
who investigate these vicious felonies
are members of an elite squad
known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
- Welcome back to "Heart's Desire" live in NYC.
I'm your host, John Valentine.
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat music]
It is week six,
and we are down to three men and four women,
which means that one of these lovely young ladies
will be going home at the end of tonight's broadcast.
Over the last few days,
Melanie and Gigi have been competing for one man's heart,
Ryan, our tennis pro from San Diego.
[cheers and applause]
*
Tonight, the journey to true love
comes to a dramatic climax
when Ryan chooses his heart's desire.
Melanie, how are you feeling?
- Really great.
Our date was magical.
- Maybe for you, but I know Ryan is falling for me.
- I'm sorry, can you turn this off?
- Or just throw the TV out?
- John, but Gigi doesn't...
- Who actually watches this show?
- I just want to spend all of my time with him.
[audience reacts]
- God, you're sounding very needy.
Maybe that's why he's not into you.
- Ooh, look at that brunette throwing shade.
- Yeah, Gigi is a total witch.
Me and Frannie are Team Melanie, aren't we?
- I know it's only been six weeks,
but Ryan is the guy of my dreams.
[cheers and applause]
- And Gigi... - Yeah.
- How was your date with Ryan this week?
- Well, we went on a helicopter ride.
[sentimental music]
*
It was steamy!
[light applause]
- Yeah.
- The skyline was beautiful,
but the windows got so fogged we could only see each other.
[laughs]
- That does sound steamy.
And what about your date, Melanie?
- Quiet, but Ryan and I truly connected.
- You did?
*
- We went on a carriage ride.
Being in the most romantic city
in the arms of the sweetest guy,
I just felt like a real-life Disney princess.
*
[cheers and applause]
- Oh, no.
No, no guy wants to hear that.
Rollins?
Are you crying?
- No, I'm not.
- Oh, you are so busted.
- And what happened when you got back to the triplex?
Let's take a look.
- Hey.
Look who's back.
- Oh, hey.
- Oh, yeah.
[laughter]
- Hey! You guys look happy.
- Graham made mojitos. You want one?
- Uh, we--we're good, thanks.
- Yeah.
- Hey.
So John slipped me the Dream Suite key.
[dance music plays]
It's ours if we want it.
- I'm dizzy and--
[giggles]
*
[warm music]
- Oh.
*
- I'm not sure about this.
*
You're a good guy.
- Yeah?
- And a sexy guy.
[cheers and applause]
- Wow, I--that's a beg step for you, Melanie.
- Oh, it wasn't that big of a step.
- Are you sure?
Let's see what happened a little later in the evening.
[audience gasps, cheers]
[dramatic music]
- Oh, whoa. - Wow.
- Wait, I-I don't remember any of this.
- Well, you--you do remember
going to the Dream Suite with Ryan, don't you?
- Yes, but I'm a virgin.
I would never have slept with him.
- Cut. Cut.
John, commercial now.
Go.
- Did Ryan rape me?
- And, uh, we'll be back.
*
- Did you see what I just saw?
- And she wasn't acting.
Did they just air a rape?
*
[dramatic music]
*
.
- I'm a virgin.
I-I would never have slept with him.
Did Ryan rape me?
- And, uh, we'll be back.
- So this mating game aired last night live?
- In front of 10 million people.
- Yeah, lock 20-year-olds up together.
Liquor them up.
I mean, I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.
- Carisi, don't tell me you watch this show.
- Uh, no.
Actually, last night was my first time.
I was making dinner.
Rollins put it on.
- Oh, you were making dinner?
Maybe you guys were distracted,
but uh, reality shows are all fake.
You know that, right?
- Not last night.
They want drama. They want fairytales.
They don't want rape, and you saw,
they cut away as soon as Melanie started to freak out.
- Did she report it?
- Who knows if the producers let her make a call?
They don't allow access to the outside world.
- Yeah, it's like Stockholm Syndrome.
I mean, with all these headlines,
plus the amount of calls we're getting from concerned viewers,
including the Chief of D's wife--
- We should at least just go and ask a few questions.
- Okay, so go talk to Melanie,
but I'm interested in our reality, not theirs.
[dance music playing]
*
- Whoa, there's the hot tub that Ashley B slapped Graham in
in the second episode.
Did you see that? - Huh?
- Hi there.
Lizzie Bauer, co-producer.
How can I help the NYPD?
- Well, we're following up on the accusation Melanie made
on the air last night.
- Of course.
We've been getting calls about it too,
but you know nothing happened, right?
Our show is heavily scripted.
- Okay, well, we still need to speak to Melanie.
- Um, our executive producers are talking to the network.
Can I ask you to wait until they get here?
- No.
- Melanie's close to the final round.
I-I talked to her last night.
If she'd wanted the police involved,
we definitely would have made that happen.
- We need to hear that from her.
- Uh-huh.
*
Hey, Melanie?
These detectives are from SVU.
They're concerned about what you said last night.
I told them that it was just part of the show,
that you're fine.
- Let her tell us that.
Melanie, can we ask you a few questions?
- Um, I guess so.
- Give us the room, please?
- Oh. Okay.
I will be right outside when you're done.
[door closes]
- Hey.
We were watching last night.
That looked...tough.
How you doing?
- I don't know.
Um, it's hard to know what you're thinking
with everybody always watching and filming.
- Okay, you all have privacy in the bathroom?
All right.
- All I know is, I don't remember having sex.
I would never have agreed to that.
- But you think you did have sex?
- Well, after seeing the video, it kind of made sense.
Morning after my date, I was sore down there.
My panties were on the floor.
I felt...different.
- Did you tell anybody?
- I didn't remember it, so I didn't say anything.
- Okay, well, Melanie, um...if you were--
if you were unable to consent, yeah, that could be rape.
- Well, they said that it wasn't.
- Who's they?
- Lizzie.
And the Princes,
Jeffrey and Regina Prince, the executive producers.
They said that since I told Ryan
that I wanted to lose my virginity to him eventually,
that I must have wanted it.
- No. No.
They were wrong, all right?
It doesn't matter what you did
or what you said before.
[dramatic music]
- Th--then I don't--
I don't understand.
I thought that Ryan and I were in love with each other.
Why...
why would he rape me?
- We can investigate.
We can talk to Ryan and collect evidence.
Do you have any clothing from that night?
- They take care of our laundry here.
They take care of everything.
Could I borrow your cell?
We're not allowed phones, and I want to call my mom.
- Of course.
*
- So sorry you had to waste a trip.
- No, not really.
Detective Rollins is going to take Melanie to the hospital
to get a rape kit done.
- No--wait, Melanie can't go.
She has a shoot.
The ladies dine and dish. - Does she?
That mean that the guys aren't working then, right?
That's good, because I need to talk to Ryan.
- Hang on. This is a closed set.
- No, not anymore, it's not.
- Lizzie, they want you to stir things up before we shoot.
Wait, so it's true?
There are cops here?
- John Valentine.
You were with Melanie last night
when she watched that video?
To me it looked like she was genuinely surprised.
- Let me give you lesson number one
from the John Valentine school of reality hosting:
you stand on your mark,
you say the words,
you get paid, that's it.
- Thank you, John.
The detectives are here on official police business.
- Come on, Lizzie.
About Melanie crying rape?
Please, she signed a waiver. - [huffs]
- Lesson number two: if it's a reality show,
there is no reality.
- All right, so do we just start?
- This isn't part of the show, Ryan.
- Right, sorry. We're in a bubble here.
- Listen, we want to talk to you
about your date with Melanie,
your time in the Dream Suite.
- I don't like to kiss and tell.
- 10 million people saw that video.
- Okay.
She gave me her virginity.
- All right, so you had sex with her.
You want to give us any specifics?
- It was magical. Our hearts' desire.
- That's not what she's saying.
- Wait, is this about Melanie's freak-out on the live show?
'Cause whatever she said, that--it was part of the script.
- No, it wasn't. We just spoke to her.
She doesn't remember having sex.
She said she was unconscious.
- I...
look, look, you need to talk to the producers
'cause they must have told her to say that, too.
We don't say anything
unless we've cleared it with them first.
[dramatic music]
- So Melanie agreed to a rape kit
but she has no memory
of consenting to or even having sex?
- No, no, but Ryan does.
- He claims it was consensual. - And magical.
- Okay, are you sure that this isn't part of the show?
- Yeah, look, something happened to this girl
that she did not want to have happen.
- Uh, these are our executive producers.
- Jeff Prince. - Hey.
- My wife, Regina. We rushed in from Wainscott
as soon as Lizzie told us you were here.
- Okay, and, Lieutenant Benson,
now you're aware that we're investigating a rape allegation?
- Aware and appalled.
Our show is about love, romance.
This accusation is deeply disturbing.
- We tell the bachelors to treat every young lady
as if she's our daughter.
- You have a daughter? - No, we don't have children.
The point is, these girls need to be respected and protected.
- Okay, well, Melanie doesn't feel like she was.
- Believe me, if there was any indication
that something had happened against her will,
we wouldn't have gone with it.
- So you're saying it was consensual?
- Well...
- Melanie has been trying
to connect with Ryan for weeks, you know.
Maybe having the audience find out
that she had lost her virginity...
- Was so mortifying
that she tried to project her self-loathing onto Ryan.
Look, Melanie's so...
Melanie's mercurial.
both: Sensitive.
- Makes for good drama, but--
- Yeah, but until she veers off-script.
- Yeah. - But she told my detectives
that she has no memory of consenting.
- Well, she never mentioned that
when Lizzie talked to her the morning after.
- Like I said, she's a small-town girl.
Her parents were watching.
She panicked.
Oh, no, maybe she got wind of the fact
that Ryan was--Ryan was going to pick Gigi.
- Girl cries rape, game clock is on hold.
Is somebody writing this down?
Lizzie. - Wait, wait, wait, stop.
All right, you're saying that Melanie cried rape
because she didn't want Ryan to go with Gigi?
- Jeffrey, we have to show them.
- [sighs]
The network lawyers told us to give you nothing
without a warrant,
but you should see her morning-after interview.
Come on.
- We're stepping in.
Hey, come on.
- We call it an OTF.
both: On the fly.
- You know, to get their immediate reactions.
This one didn't make it to air because, well,
frankly, it's boring.
- How are you feeling this morning, Melanie?
- Oh, I woke up on top of the world.
So happy.
- So last night was a dream come true?
- Yeah.
I mean, dates like last night
are what makes fighting for Ryan
and this whole
"Heart's Desire" process worth it.
- Uh-huh.
Gigi looked pretty upset when you went off with him,
but talk to me about that.
- Ah, Lizzie. I mean, come on.
I-I don't kiss and tell.
- Now, you know I have to ask.
- Okay, well, um...
Ryan was a complete gentleman the whole night.
That's what made it so special.
He could be the one.
I think we're falling in love.
- Her own words.
If we can help you with anything else--
- Anything at all, just ask.
[tense music]
- Okay. Thank you.
.
- I said Ryan was a perfect gentleman
before I realized that he had sex with me,
but I'm not making this up.
- We believe you.
The rape kit found traces
of condom lubricant, so--
- Oh, my God.
So I'm...
I'm not a virgin anymore.
I can't go back to that house.
- Okay, well, we need you to stay in the city
until we finish this investigation,
but we're happy to put you up in a hotel.
- The Princes are already taking care of that.
You saw them at the hospital.
They're being really understanding
about all of this.
- Yes, they are.
- This girl didn't realize she was raped
until she saw it on live TV?
- I know, I know.
- I get the she said. What's the he said?
- Ryan Ledder claims that it was consensual.
- And the footage shows what?
Can you tell if she's conscious or not?
- Not really.
All we have is what was broadcast.
There's, you know,
night camera movement, no audio,
and the lawyers are dragging their feet
about the raw footage.
- I'll get you a warrant to clone the servers
and a grand jury subpoena for all the audio and video records
from over the weekend.
My mother watches the show.
She says they film every minute.
- So there's got to be continuous recording
of what led up to the sex.
That should tell us something.
- Or not.
- Ryan is here.
- We didn't ask to talk to him.
- He wants to talk to us. So does his mother.
She's a divorce lawyer.
- How noble.
I'll get you those warrants.
- I called the show
the second I saw what had happened.
Now, the producers assured me
there was nothing to worry about.
- They didn't even tell me that she called.
- Then I see the headlines accusing my son of rape?
I got on the first plane
and I yanked him the hell out of there.
- Okay, Mrs. Ledder, I appreciate your concern,
but your son is being investigated for sexual assault.
- Well, that's why we're here.
Tell them, Ryan.
Tell them what you told me.
- Okay, I lied to you this morning.
Mel and I, we didn't have sex.
- So that wasn't you in the Dream Suite?
- It was me, at first.
We had a lot of champagne, she kissed me,
then she whispered in my ear that...
[sighs]
Once we were married,
she would give me her most precious gift.
It...it freaked me out.
It was too much pressure.
I got out of there.
- So why didn't you just say that?
- Come on, I was trying to stay on the show.
The producers told me that Melanie and I,
we had a real shot at the finale.
That would be huge for both of us.
- I told him not to do this ridiculous show.
I mean, come on.
They will do anything for ratings.
- The thing is, Ryan,
is Melanie's rape kit confirmed sexual activity.
There were abrasions, condom lubricant residue.
- That's impossible.
- Whoa, whoa, lubricant?
Can you tell the brand? - Mom!
- Uh, yes, actually, it was, uh, Sultan Ecstasy.
- Use those, Ryan?
- Yeah, but we all do.
There's bowls of them all over the house.
Look, someone else must have come in after I left, all right?
There's a lot that they leave out.
- Bottom line,
whoever deflowered Sleeping Beauty,
it wasn't my son.
[tense music]
- We've been in crisis mode all day.
Network lawyers, the studio, Ryan's mother,
now this warrant from your DA.
- Did you manipulate the footage last night?
- You mean, did we edit it? Yes.
- Well, did Ryan happen to tell you
that he freaked out and left Melanie in the Dream Suite?
- Well, yes, but when we went through
the nighttime motion-activated footage,
somebody was in bed with her.
- So you let the audience and Melanie believe it was Ryan?
- We thought maybe he changed his mind.
He had a drink. He came back in.
It happens all the time.
- Well, did you ask him about that?
- Do you have any idea what reality TV is like?
Non-union crew working 19-hour days
with a cast of rum-drunk 20-somethings
who've all been locked in together for weeks.
It is a miracle we get a show on every Mond--
- Okay, we need to see that footage, please.
- Yes.
Visitors here.
- Officers, I, uh...
I wish you were here under better circumstances.
- We're here with a warrant.
- Um, yeah, we were informed.
We've just been going over all of the footage from that night.
We did miss something.
- Did you miss something or were you covering it up?
- Explain, Lizzie.
- After the crew is sent home,
everything is shot from security cameras.
They're motion-activated,
and sometimes it takes them a while to wake up.
- Uh, here's what we've, uh, reconstructed.
- You're a good guy.
- Yeah?
- And a sexy guy.
- That's what actually aired.
Stan, fast forward.
Okay, hit play.
- You do know that I'm a virgin.
- Yeah.
- But if you want to spend the night,
we can cuddle.
I know that you're the one for me,
and when we're married,
I'll give you my most precious gift.
- I, um...
I think we should call it a night.
It's been great, though.
- I love you, Ryan.
- Fast forward.
[suspenseful music]
You can see why we didn't air any of that.
It wasn't good for the narrative.
- Hold on.
So the nightcam footage that shows them having sex,
what was that?
- I don't know. - You don't know?
- I assumed it was Ryan. I didn't see it.
- We realize now after talking with Ryan and his mother
and double-checking the time code,
that it wasn't him.
- Whoever it was, you've got footage of them
going into the Dream Suite and getting into Melanie's bed.
- No, we're still going through all the raw footage.
- Our techs will handle that, thank you.
Uh, in the meantime,
we'll need to speak with everyone
who was working Saturday night, off camera.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
- Okay, everybody please, listen up.
The NYPD are here to investigate the heinous accusation
that Melanie made on air last night.
- Oh, my God, so this is real?
- We don't know, but the show is now on hold.
Production's shut down.
- Wait, wait, what?
So it's true. Melanie was raped.
- Don't look at me.
I was with Ashley S all night long.
Girl almost killed me.
- Emmett, not now.
- Everyone is presumed innocent.
- Where are Ryan and Melanie? - Are they off the show?
- They're fine.
Uh, we have them staying in separate hotels for now.
But for your safety,
the house security cams will remain on at all times.
- And in the meantime, no one leaves the house.
As soon as this is resolved, we'll resume filming.
- We're only two episodes away from our finale, people.
We've come this far together.
- How long do we just sit around for?
- Until our investigation is over.
My squad and I will interview
each and every one of you.
- And we expect you to cooperate fully.
We're taking this very seriously.
If you saw something...
both: Say something.
- How did Melanie seem to you Saturday night?
- She was def drunk, but she was into Ryan,
so I don't know why she's crying rape now.
- So you think she's lying?
- I don't know.
Maybe the producers set her up or something.
*
- I saw Ryan leading Melanie to the Dream Suite.
He was all over her.
I thought if those two hook up,
I better hook up with somebody fast,
so I made my move on Ashley B.
- How'd that work out?
- Friendzoned.
She said she liked me, but not like that,
so I finished a pitcher of mojitos and passed out.
- So Graham, remember what time it was?
- Uh, after midnight?
The crew was gone,
and if Ryan left the suite it must have been after that.
- Whoever raped her was not Ryan.
I know because him and I spent the night together.
- He came to your room?
- No, I went to his
after Lizzie told me him and Melanie hadn't worked out.
*
- Lizzie told you that?
- Yeah, I was in the hot tub.
Ashley S and Emmett had already hooked up.
There was no way I was about to do Graham.
I thought I was off the show.
- And that's when Lizzie came to you?
- Mm-hmm, she told me that Melanie just wanted
to cuddle with Ryan,
that he left the Dream Suite unsatisfied.
She told me to take my shot.
- Okay...did they film any of this?
- No, they don't film what the producers tell us.
They wind us up and then they turn the cameras on.
- All right, okay, so she wound you up.
What did you do?
- I took my shot.
I toweled off, I found Ryan at the bar,
and we went straight to his room.
I told him I would do anything he wanted,
and I did.
It wasn't the Dream Suite, but I blew his...
mind.
- They didn't put that on the show?
- They told us they were going to.
They'd interviewed me and Ryan about it.
It was gonna be the big surprise twist.
Maybe they told Melanie that,
and that's why she cried rape,
so it could be all about her.
- Gigi's a liar.
It's a major plot line.
Nobody likes her.
- Well, she says Ryan does.
She told me that they hooked up last night.
both: Oh, please.
- She's hooked up with everybody, including Ashley B.
Did she tell you that?
- Well, she said that this was all on film,
that she and Ryan were supposed to be the big reveal
at the end of the live show.
- Okay, okay, we may have let her think that.
We keep as many balls in the air as we can,
but the whole point is to surprise them live on camera.
- Uh, we--we have a situation.
- Yeah, that's gonna have to wait.
- Melanie's here, she's looking for Ryan.
I didn't know what to tell her.
- Where is she? - The lounge.
- Cue cameras six, seven, and eight.
- Where is he? Where the hell is Ryan?
- Melanie, what's wrong? - Got an STD from my rapist.
- Oh, geez. - Oh.
- I should go in there. - Absolutely not.
- John, you go. - No, everybody stays here.
Fin, Carisi, to the lounge now.
- Hey, hey, whoa! - Stop!
[all yelling at once]
.
- He raped me! - Oh, he raped you?
- You're all just going to do what they say after that?
- Don't you ever in your life-- - Go to hell!
[all bickering]
- Hey, hey, break it up.
- Stop! Now. Stop.
- She started it.
- Shut up, you did. You start everything.
- Hey, I don't care who started it.
It's over. Now.
- Okay, Graham. Emmett.
You two, come with me.
- I didn't do anything. - Okay, be quiet, sit down.
All three of you, come on.
- Melanie, why don't you come with us, please?
- So we saw on the security footage.
You got an STD?
- From Ryan. Chlamydia.
Where is he?
- His mother took him out of the house,
but Melanie, you should know
that he may not be the one who assaulted you.
- What? - Well, the timeline is off.
There's footage of him leaving the Dream Suite
before the nightcam video that aired.
[footsteps approaching]
- Okay, folks, everybody calm down.
We're on the same team. Let's stick together.
- Okay, your show is over.
This is a police investigation.
- We're all on the same page. Everything's kosh.
- I want the cameras off now.
- Uh, Lizzie, you heard her.
- Kill cameras six, seven, and eight.
- All of them. - Kill all of them.
- Thank you.
Now, do you test your contestants for STDs
before they're allowed on the show?
- Of course we do.
We do psych profiles, background checks.
- We carefully vet every potential cast member,
the crew included.
- Great, I'm gonna need to see all those records.
- Of course. - Lizzie, come on.
- Thank you.
- So there were nine men in the house that night?
- Yes, but the crew left at midnight,
and from the time code,
Melanie's assault happened after that.
- Yeah, and all the crew guys had alibis.
We confirmed that they were drinking
at a nearby hotel bar until last call.
- Test them all for STDs anyway.
- Yeah, we did.
Along with all three bachelors.
- The lab results aren't back yet.
So everybody's still sequestered in this triplex?
- We got unis posted out front.
I don't trust these producers.
- Oh, speaking of which,
where are we with the TARU raw footage?
- They cloned their entire server.
- So far after Ryan leaves at midnight,
we have no video of anyone
going in or out of that Dream Suite.
- But there is video of someone
in bed with Melanie at 2:00 a.m.?
- Right, so either we're dealing with a ghost here,
or we don't have all the footage.
- You don't.
We feel awful about this.
- Jeffrey and Regina Prince, this is ADA Rafael Barba.
- Hey. - How do you do? Hello.
What don't we have?
- We were just so devastated by what happened to Melanie
that we had the tech team come in and scour everything.
- Yeah, TARU took your entire server.
- Lizzie?
- It's complicated.
We have footage from over two dozen cameras
in different file formats,
most of it mislabeled.
The nighttime security got stored on another hard drive.
- Who knows how or why?
If I understood tech,
I wouldn't be in this business.
I'd be in a mega yacht off the cost of Capri right now.
- Okay, so just show us what you have.
[tense music]
- Melanie.
You okay?
*
Are you awake?
- See, it was Graham.
Yeah, we were shocked.
- You sure this isn't doctored?
- I wish it were.
- And this just turned up, too?
We watched this footage together.
- Lizzie. - It's motion-activated.
When it finally woke up it created a new file
which also got mislabeled.
*
- So you magically just had this one part
that was for the live show?
- There's not a jury in the world
that would believe any of the stories you just told.
- A jury?
- Yeah, you've gone past obstruction.
You're looking at tampering with physical evidence,
a felony.
- Believe me, it's all true. I already fired the editor.
- Uh-huh, and we believe you.
Don't we have enough to arrest Graham?
- House of mirrors.
Get Graham aside, talk to Melanie.
- It was Graham?
He was always so nice.
- You don't remember him coming into the Dream Suite?
You didn't consent to having sex with him?
- No. No.
Are you sure that it was him?
- The producers have footage of him in the hallway,
coming into the Dream Suite, the whole thing.
It's him.
*
- Lizzie must have known.
Why didn't she say something?
Why did Graham do that to me?
- I went into the Dream Suite because I was worried about her.
- You had sex with her while she was unconscious.
- No, you've got it all wrong.
I-I was helping the both of us.
- Really? How was that?
- I saw Ryan leave, I saw Gigi go into Ryan's room.
I knew they'd make the next round.
I figured the only way for the two of us to stay in the game
was to join forces.
- Ah, so that's why you raped her.
- It wasn't rape.
- Let's go. - She didn't say no.
She didn't tell me to stop.
Tell them, Lizzie.
I told you about it the next day.
- Graham, it's over.
- You interviewed me the next morning.
- You said that you went to Melanie as a friend
and then it turned into something more.
- And you said everything would be fine.
- Because I didn't know that you had raped her!
- Lizzie, let it go.
You can take him out of here, officers.
- Hold on, are you filming this?
- Get this camera out of here.
- Legally, we're within our rights to film the police.
- Okay, Detective Tutuola, not our concern.
- Unless you're arresting me, I'm not going anywhere.
- Fine.
- Turn around.
- Graham Turco, you're under arrest.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you
in a court of law.
You have the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.
.
- So you're claiming the sex was consensual, right?
- Yes.
- Then why didn't you say anything before, Graham?
- The producers told me not to.
They like the Ryan storyline better.
- If the producers told him
to kill his friend for the storyline, would he?
- Hold on. For what it's worth,
Graham tested positive for Chlamydia.
Same bacterial strain as Melanie.
- The producers gave him up
'cause we were about to find out he was the rapist.
- It's moot. Got him now.
How's Melanie doing?
- She hasn't wavered since she disclosed.
- Good.
I want to get her in front of a grand jury tomorrow.
Just keep her away from those producers.
They have been one step ahead of us the whole time.
I don't want any surprises.
- Good evening, and welcome to a special edition
of "Heart's Desire."
Monday night,
millions of you watched Melanie make a disturbing accusation
against Ryan, which we treated with...
- Carisi, turn it on now.
- We immediately shut production down,
and our executive producers, Jeffrey and Regina Prince,
investigated alongside New York City's finest.
- Once we learned that there was a predator in our midst,
we made it our mission to catch the rapist.
- They played us.
- We can order in,
have it ready by the time we get to your place.
- Sounds romantic.
- Hey, Lu--
Sorry.
Didn't mean to interrupt, but you got to see this.
- Okay.
- The morning after the accusation,
Lieutenant Olivia Benson
and detectives from the Special Victims Unit arrived.
- My squad and I will interview each and every one of you.
- And we expect you to cooperate fully.
We're taking this very seriously.
If you saw something...
both: Say something.
- I told the cops I saw Graham awake that night.
They didn't care.
This whole time, there's been a rapist living amongst us?
*
And Melanie has been blaming my Ryan?
- It turns out, Gigi was able to vouch for Ryan.
The two of them spent the whole night together in Ryan's room.
The more we investigated,
the more we realized Melanie's story didn't add up.
And it was about to get much worse.
- I got an STD from my rapist.
- There it was, cold hard proof that Melanie was assaulted,
yet the Special Victims Unit was no closer
to identifying the perp.
We knew we had to take the investigation
into our own hands.
- Hey. What'd I miss?
- Melanie's a liar and NYPD screwed up.
- Yeah, I can't wait to see who the heroes are.
- Jeffrey, Regina, I found something.
Looks like it never got logged.
Less than a minute later...
and look now.
There's not enough time for an assault
and Ryan never had his clothes off.
- She got an STD.
What--what if we missed something?
That means that someone else went into that room
after Ryan left.
- Okay, people, we're gonna go through every piece of footage
on every card and hard drive in this triplex
until we find out the truth.
- We did, and we made it our responsibility to inform SVU.
- We were devastated by what happened to Melanie,
so we had the tech team come in and scour everything.
- They filmed us?
- Apparently.
- Son of bitches wore hidden cameras.
- No, no, two of them did.
Those shots are from Jeffrey and Regina's point of view.
- Yeah, Lizzie, their producer.
Nothing from her POV.
- That's not an accident.
They're setting her up.
- Lizzie, play it for them.
- Melanie, are you awake?
- It was Graham. We were shocked.
- Thanks to our due diligence, the NYPD finally had a suspect.
- She didn't say no. She didn't tell me to stop.
Tell them, Lizzie, I told you about it the next day,
and you said everything would be fine.
- Why didn't Lizzie say anything?
- Could she have conspired with Graham
to keep a rape quiet?
Our investigation continued.
- You're under arrest.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
You have the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.
- As traumatic as this was
for all of our remaining contestants,
revealing the truth to Melanie was even more heartbreaking.
- It was Graham?
He was always so nice.
- God, they rigged her hotel room with cameras?
- The producers have footage of him in the hallway,
coming into the Dream Suite.
- Lizzie must have known.
Why didn't she say something?
- There was one last shot for Jeffrey, Regina, and myself.
We were outraged when we realized that Lizzie Bauer,
our trusted on-set producer,
knew the truth about this and covered it up the whole time.
- She was so desperate to get a good story
that she lost sight of what was most important,
which is the well-being and safety of our cast members.
- Even more upsetting,
Lizzie tried to erase evidence of the rape
by hiding and mis-filing footage.
Graham Turco was under arrest,
and we understand that tomorrow a grand jury will be convened
to indict him on charges of rape in the first degree.
Lizzie Bauer, I can assure you, will never set foot
on the set of "Heart's Desire" again.
- We want to say thank you to Melanie
for showing such bravery and coming forward with this.
We just want you to know
that we are wishing you the very best
on your road to recovery.
- When we return,
a clinical psychologist joins us
for an in-depth discussion...
.
- Look, I don't care anymore.
I'll still testify against Graham,
but what about the Princes?
They put cameras in my hotel room.
They told everyone that I had a disease.
Can they just get away with that?
- I hope to God they don't.
Just give me a second, okay?
She's good to testify later today.
She just got blindsided by the Princes.
- So were we.
They ransacked my witness list,
manipulated footage, forced the cast to lie.
Now we have to respond to their version of reality?
- They're not stupid.
They aired that last night
so that everybody in the country
would think that they're the only ones
trying to get justice for Melanie.
- Good TV, good ratings.
- Hang on.
The Princes also went specifically out of their way
to make Lizzie look like the only one
who was guilty of covering this up.
- Right, they put it all on her and made her the weak link.
So let's go after her.
- Me? - Yeah.
- That was all Jeffrey and Regina.
You know by now how they edit this stuff.
- So you didn't mislabel footage on purpose,
tell the other girls to keep quiet about Melanie,
hide the evidence?
- No, it wasn't like that.
- So what was it like, Lizzie?
- I was asleep.
The next morning, I saw the footage.
I called Jeffrey and Regina.
They told me to shut up about it
and get the footage off of the server.
- So you did?
- Yeah, it's their show.
They said that if we played it like it was Ryan,
they would make sure that Melanie went along with it.
When I spoke with her the next day,
she didn't even bring it up.
[tense music]
I just didn't want to believe that she was really raped.
- That's your story.
And we believe you.
- The thing is, if we talk to your bosses about it,
they'll lie to our faces.
They're good at that.
*
- But so are you, Lizzie.
*
- Hey.
- Where have you been?
What are we gonna do?
The cops are coming after me.
I am literally freaking out over here.
- Calm down, Lizzie. Let's just talk.
- Now you want to talk?
You sold me out on national television.
- Relax.
We'll get you the best lawyer network money can buy.
You won't serve time.
Graham's the bad guy here.
- So what am I?
Collateral damage?
- Come on, Lizzie.
You're a smart girl.
This is $100 million-a-year franchise.
We're not gonna let it get taken down by one stupid mistake.
- Mistake?
He raped her and we all knew.
- All right, he put it in her for a few seconds.
He's drunk, she's drunk, I mean, maybe she raped him.
It's--really, it's not our problem.
- Yeah, the problem is that you tried to cover it up.
You lied to the police.
You made Melanie think that she was crazy.
- You did the exact same thing.
You want to be an exec?
Get used to this.
What, did you think we'd go on TV
and say you came to us about a rape
and we told you how to make it go away?
- That's what happened.
- Lizzie, how long have you been working on this show?
It doesn't matter what happened,
just what the audience thinks happened.
*
- She filmed this.
Is that even legal?
- You put cameras in Melanie's hotel room without her knowledge
and then aired it on national TV.
That's a felony.
- Not to mention your little cover-up.
That's another felony.
Aiding and abetting a rape?
That puts you on the registry.
- Oh, come on.
You--you can't be serious.
- We are.
What's that other show?
"Let's Make a Deal"?
*
- The Princes will plead guilty
to one count of tampering with physical evidence.
It's a felony.
- They won't do time.
- Probably not, they're rich.
- But they'll never work in TV again.
- And yet, I can guarantee you, "Heart's Desire" will go on.
- In a way, though,
you're lucky that they threw you under the bus.
Got you to cooperate.
You hadn't done that, you'd still be on the hook.
- Great, so I avoid a felony charge.
I can't wait to put it on my resume.
Sorry.
The show brought out the worst in me,
and I learned to bring out the worst in those girls.
Just so you know,
I really was asleep when she was raped.
I swear.
- We believe you.
- Melanie won't.
How does she get over this?
- [sighs]
- So Graham is pleading guilty?
- Yes, he knows not to take this to trial.
The good news is, Melanie, that you don't have to testify.
- Melanie!
- Oh. - Hey.
My mom drove from Idaho to pick me up.
- Oh, nice.
- I don't know what I'm gonna do when I get home.
I feel lost.
- That's normal.
It takes time, Melanie.
But you will get through this, I promise.
- Do you know what the worst part is?
I actually thought that Ryan and I were in love.
- Come on. - I thought he was going to
ask me to marry him in the finale,
and we were going to live happily ever after.
- Take care.
*
- [crying] Oh, sweetheart.
*
[crying]
*
[wolf howling]