Paul Michael Sandig was a wealthy businessman and the prime suspect in the murder of Detective Robert Croft.
Paul laundered $6,000,000 for drug dealer Ted Quinlan, while making almost $1,000,000 cut of the profits. Croft was undercover as "Bobby Cassidy" during Quinlan's laundering scheme. When Sandig found out Croft was onto him, he shot and killed the detective to silence him.
Upon his arrest, he hired attorney Helen Brolin to dismiss the capital charge against him. She argued at Judge Ida Boucher that Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis did an illegal search. Despite the fact that they had a warrant, it was signed to search at his office suite, not at the storage room where they found audio tapes, which incriminates her client. She asked to have the additional evidence from the illegal search to be excluded as well, to which Boucher agreed, reducing the charge to second-degree murder.
Jack McCoy gave Quinlan immunity for his testimony against Sandig, which reinstated the capital charge.
Sandig was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree and unanimously sentenced to death.