Richard Morgan was the CEO of Richmore Investments, a philanthropist, and a prime suspect in the rape-murders of accountants Renee Simmons and Nancy Pierce.
Background[]
In 1987, Morgan formed Richmore Investments to supposedly buy and sell stocks for clients. He also hired Ingrid Block as his chief counsel. He leased an office at Trent Towers to conduct business in and started running a Ponzi scheme. When the stock market crashed on October 19, Nancy Pierce, a junior partner at a small accounting firm handling his books, found out about his scheme. She blackmailed Morgan into paying $500,000 so she could leave and to keep her quiet, so she could get an apartment and put her boyfriend, a maintenance man working at Trent Towers named Daniel Hardy, through college. Morgan decided to kill Pierce to silence her and on October 23, he pulled Nancy into the men's bathroom, where he raped and murdered her. Morgan then dumped her body in an air vent and left it there for the police to find it two days later. When the police arrested Hardy for the murder, Morgan testified at his trial, providing his motive, means, and opportunity. Hardy was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment as a result.
Afterwards, Morgan continued conning people out of their money while portraying himself as a wealthy philanthropist who teaches karate to underprivileged youths. His company made its way to the Fortune 500 list in 1994 and stayed there for the next fifteen years, eventually purchasing his own building with the stolen profits. In 2009, Morgan got in a relationship with a secretary at his accounting firm, Renee Simmons, who was also an informant for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When the stock market crashed again, Morgan only had $5,000,000 on deposit and started stalling, holding off on giving his clients their money back to save himself. Morgan also fired everyone in accounting to cover his tracks and somehow discovered Renee's job as an IRS informant. As a result, he lured her back into his building so he could kill her, thereby removing any loose ends.
Confidential[]
On the morning of December 14, Morgan reenters the building with Block to discover the police searching his building. Morgan asks his head of security, Hopkins, what is happening and he explains they are looking for a missing woman. Captain Cragen introduces himself and two of his detectives, Benson and Stabler. Despite Block's objections, Morgan allows the police to search the building for the missing woman, promises to tell the tenants to look for anyone who didn't show up for work, and tells Dopkins to keep him posted.
When Renee's body is discovered, Morgan tells the detectives that he laid off Renee and twelve other employees, collected their ID badges, swiped each one of the them out, and let them all out of the building. Morgan then attempts to pin Renee's murder on her ex-husband Matt, mentioning that he had a temper and works as a stockbroker on the same floor Renee was killed on. The police eventually discover Morgan's Ponzi scheme and arrest him while working to get evidence on the murders he committed. Morgan is arraigned on 230 counts of grand larceny and fraud in the first degree each, and 20 counts of tax evasion, and pleads not guilty. The judge orders Morgan to surrender his passport, wear an electronic ankle monitoring device, and denies bail.
Morgan is taken back to SVU's interrogation room, where Benson and Stabler interrogate him. However, he smugly denies raping and killing either woman. Stabler tells him that he will tie Morgan to the murder he framed Hardy for, but Morgan smugly wishes him luck. While he is leaving the squad room, he is suddenly shot twice in the chest and killed by one of his clients, Thomas Rooney, which was arranged by Block.