Luca Gabardelli is a teenage boy who was having sex with his teacher Natalie Relais, who he later killed for breaking up with him.
History[]
While attending an elite private school, Gabardelli was pursued by Relais, his biology teacher, and they started having consensual sex with each other despite his age. Because he was being sexually exploited, his grades started to fall. When the school headmistress Joanne Parsons, a former lover of Relais, catches them having sex in the library, Relais instructs Luca to accuse a male teacher named Rick Simms of molesting him to cover up what they were doing, which causes Simms to be dismissed. When his parents hear that Gabardelli was molested, his father, Ray Gabardelli, advises him to not tell the police, believing Gabardelli would only be further humiliated. Ray then pays members of a local street gang called BX9 to brutalize and then sodomize Simms like they had been doing to other gay men.
When SVU detectives ask Ray about Simms' assault and the alleged sexual abuse of his son, he confesses to the crimes, which leads to the detectives investigating Luca's abuse. When the detectives question Gabardelli about what happened to him, he continues to claim he was molested. Later, when Detectives Olivia Benson and Nick Amaro question him again, they discover that the details of Luca's story are not adding up and Luca's mother Cherry tells them to leave. When Gabardelli tells Relais that the detectives are starting to suspect he is lying, she tells him to accuse Parsons of having sex with him. To reinforce his accusations, she tells him about a book that she and Parsons use to read together and about a scar on Parsons' upper inner leg.
Parsons was arrested, but Gabardelli and Relais' relationship is eventually discovered, much to his father's joy. However, before Relais can be arrested, she is murdered. Gabardelli had gone to her, saying that they should run away together, but she rejected him and his offer. She then told him that she had a fiancé in Atlanta, who she was going to marry. Unable to handle her rejection, he grabbed a knife, used it to hold her hostage, and eventually killed her with it. During the standoff between Gabardelli and police, Amaro is able to get Luca to put the knife down and allow himself to be arrested for murder. (SVU: "Learning Curve")