In keeping with the "Law & Order (1990)" system of having actors appear prior to becoming regular characters, Courtney B. Vance plays an uncredited assistant to the Mayor. He would return 5 years later in 1995 as another character in Rage (1995) and then 11 years later as prosecutor A.D.A. Ron Carver in Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001).
Michael Moriarty (E.A.D.A. Ben Stone) and Richard Brooks (A.D.A. Paul Robinette) remained in the series' opening credits for the remainder of its run. They can be seen at the top of the stairs in the shot of the courthouse against the "ORDER" title. This shot is taken from the end of this episode, and it has been in the show's opening credits since the pilot episode (although shortened by about half a second in 1994). Furthermore, George Dzundza (Max Greevey) remained in the opening credits until the end of 1993, despite his leaving after the first season. In the original credits version, which ran from 1990 to 1993, after the trademark "big four" shot of the two detectives and two prosecutors walking together, the credits featured a shot of the two detectives' unmarked patrol car speeding towards the camera. Dzundza is sitting in the passenger seat. (The show's original opening credits ran twice as long as the credits from 1993 to 2010.)
This episode appears to be based on the 1984 Sydney Barrows (a.k.a. "The Mayflower Madam") case. Sydney Biddle Barrows was a modern American madam. After her escort service was exposed and disbanded, she gained worldwide notoriety, in part because she was part of the upper-class Biddle family of Philadelphia and is a Mayflower descendant. In October 1984, her escort service was shut down, and she was charged with promoting prostitution by the New York City District Attorney's Office. After she pled guilty, she published a best-selling autobiography, "Mayflower Madam (1987)," which later became a television movie of the same name starring Candice Bergen.