When Dennis Farina and Jesse Martin catch this case of an accountant and his wife as victim's of a home invasion little do they dream that this will involve a very dirty cop.
Mrs. accountant, Valerie Messick is wounded and her husband killed and no sooner do Farina and Martin come to question the survivor than they find Vincent Guastaferro a former and decorated police officer at her bedside. He was a family friend of her and the late husband and he's there to comfort the widow.
Investigation leads first to a pair of low life muscle, one Dov Davidoff was stupid enough to leave forensic evidence, of course he rolls on his partner Brad Calcaterra and throws it all on him. But the case is lost in court, but shortly afterward Calcaterra winds up dead and it's Guastaferro claiming that it was self defense.
For reasons that defy his belief Guastaferro is not granted a freebie for a murder. And as it turns out he was plenty dirty, but covered his tracks fairly well. The commendations he received acted as a deflector shield from Internal Affairs. Guastaferro may have also murdered his partner who was thought to commit suicide.
Nerve he has as he tries to bludgeon Sam Waterston into making this go away by feigning corruption on all the cases he made arrests on.
It's all quite a sticky problem for the New York County DA's office that Fred Dalton Thompson has to deal with. This episode points out quite graphically how the integrity of the judicial system goes hand in hand with the integrity of the police, individually and collectively.