Mildred Quintana is the head of the New Americans Justice Center, a legal service for immigrants especially when they can't afford the same rights as American citizens. She takes personal involvement in the investigation into serial rapist Gabriel Duvall.
History[]
Quintana's first scene at the vigil for rape and murder victim Marguerite Beauclaire consoling her grieving father. Seeing detectives Benson and Stabler, she snaps at them how little she stands for the negligence of police on the case, revealing Duvall's a serial rapist and recognizing the M.O. At the precinct, she says as many as sixteen women have been raped, and she tried to appeal her case but she was turned away out of the women being scared of testify and their statuses being threatened. She's reluctant to give their names because the women's countries have corrupt police and treat poorer classes as less than nothing, but the detectives still encourage her successfully. Nina Zergin is the only woman willing to testify, and Quintana accompanies her into her grand jury testimony, where Tracey Kibre presides since Casey Novak was beaten by Nina's brother Milan. (SVU: "Night")
When Gabriel's well-known mother Eleanor Duvall arranges for mobsters to break into Nina's apartment and graffiti the walls with Bosnian words for "prostitute" and "whore", Quintana's at the scene. Nina only has more resolve because she has nothing to lose if she testifies. (TBJ: "Day")