Law and Order
Advertisement

Lena is a woman who got engaged to men looking for mail-order brides and then, along with her partner Liev Bodrov, pretended to be kidnapped and killed in order to extort money.

History[]

Four years earlier, Lena had a daughter named Anna, who was kidnapped. After the kidnapping, she enlisted a member of the Russian mob named Liev Bodrov to help find her. In the end, Anna was killed, but Liev later managed to kill the kidnappers. She then began working with him to con lonely men looking for mail-order brides. In the process, Liev killed three of his prostitutes, each time to fake Lena's death as part of the con. One man she eventually met, named Daniel Carter, was also looking for a wife. They got engaged on a mail-order bride website, Yourczarina.com. After their engagement party in Russia, they came to New York, where Liev pretended to kidnap her, and they extorted ransom money from Daniel. Liev then killed one of his prostitutes to make it seem like Lena was murdered. When the prostitute's body is found, the SVU detectives eventually find Daniel and he tells them that Lena was kidnapped.

Donald Cragen goes undercover as a potential victim and meets Lena, who is using the alias of Irene. When they go upstairs, Cragen reveals who he is, which causes Lena to try to run, but she is caught by the other detectives and they discover her true identity. Lena then lies that Liev is holding her daughter hostage to force her to con their victims. Lena and Cragen then pretend to go on a date in order to lure Liev out, which results in Liev being shot to death by the detectives. Lena then leads the detectives to a safe-house where she claims her daughter is being held. While they raid the house, Lena shoots one of the officers dead to escape, but she is captured and eventually imprisoned. (SVU: "Russian Brides")

Advertisement