Michael Gordon was a serial burglar and double murderer.
Background
Gordon was a serial burglar who, in 1996, broke into the house of Eric and Dana Hagen by defusing the alarm. Due to an unspecified turn of events, he ended up bludgeoning Dana to death before fleeing with her jewelry, including a platinum bracelet. Gordon then sold the stolen items to Max Fierstein, a fence. The platinum bracelet fell into the possession of a hooker, before being seized by Vice agents during a bust. An innocent man, Steve Dupree, was later wrongly identified by Eric and accused of Dana's murder.
Gordon, who had been arrested on an unrelated charge, eventually admitted to the murder to his lawyer, then-defense attorney Jamie Ross, who, although bound by attorney-client privilege, felt compelled to inform the district attorney in the Hagen case, Andrew Wolinsky, of the bracelet having being sold to Feirstein, hoping it would have implicated Gordon and saved Dupree from a murder conviction. Unfortunately, Wolinsky, who counted on the Dupree trial to bolster his appointment as a judge, preferred to ignore evidence of Dupree's innocence, even after one of the detectives working on the case, Wesley Simpson, presented him with the fact that Gordon's fingerprints were on the bracelet. Dupree was subsequently sentenced to death for Dana's murder. At some point afterward, Gordon was paroled.
Justice
In 2000, when Dupree managed to obtain an appeal to his case with attorney Martin Felder, who had discovered through a private investigator that Gordon had sold the stolen items to Fierstein (by then passed away from cancer), Gordon killed Felder with a blow to the head. Arrested by Detectives Briscoe and Green, Gordon again requested Ross's legal assistance, unaware of the fact that she had tried to turn him in. EADA Jack McCoy eventually discovered Ross had tipped off Wolinsky about Dupree's innocence, and got to the point of indicting Wolinsky of attempted murder. Although prosecution of Wolinsky was denied, Simpson revealed to McCoy the existence of the file that proved Gordon's fingerprints were on the stolen bracelet. Faced with the death penalty, Gordon accepted a plea bargain in which he confessed to both murders in exchange for a sentence of 25 years to life. (L&O: "Justice")
Known Victims
- Unknown dates: Committed several victimless burglaries
- 1996: Dana Hagen (bludgeoned during a burglary and stole her jewelry)
- 2000: Martin Felder (bludgeoned)