Roy Eastman is a corrupt and racist parole officer and proxy murderer who facilitated the murders of Ceranda Zajmi and Lonnie Liston for the latter dating his teenage stepdaughter McKenna.
Background[]
Eastman was married to an unnamed woman and became stepfather to her daughter McKenna, who he loved like his own. A racist man, he was enraged that Lonnie, a Black teenager, was dating his White teenage stepdaughter. He eventually decided to separate Lonnie and McKenna by having the former arrested for statutory rape after he turned eighteen, taking advantage of the minor age disparity between the two. Lonnie, unable to afford a trial and afraid of Eastman's connections, took a plea deal to avoid the maximum sentence and was imprisoned, but he was later released on parole and sent to live at a motel catering to pedophiles. However, he and McKenna continued to see each other in secret.
Welcome to the Pedo Motel[]
After realizing McKenna was still seeing Lonnie and would soon turn 17, New York's age of consent, thus allowing her to be with Lonnie with no grounds for interference, Eastman conspires to send Lonnie back to prison. Eastman blackmails one of his parolees, Antonio Johnson, into sexually assaulting Lonnie's coworker Ceranda Zajmi and framing Lonnie for it, by threatening to claim he violated his parole and have him sent back to prison. After Antonio's refusal, the latter's half-brother Sam Johnson carries it out to protect him but accidentally kills Ceranda in the process. Nevertheless, Sam succeeds in putting the police on Lonnie's trail, and the murder riles up the entire neighborhood against the pedophile motel. When the investigation takes longer than Eastman hopes for, he decides to get rid of Lonnie altogether by tipping off a group of racist vigilante bikers that Lonnie was the killer. As a result, the men, led by Eduardo Alvarez, attack the motel, injuring most of the residents and murdering Lonnie by lynching and burning him alive.
When Special Victims Unit visits his home, he sends McKenna away and speaks to the detectives. He feigns ignorance about what happened to Lonnie, claiming that while it wasn't right, he deems it justice for his "crimes" against McKenna, but the detectives see through his facade. From Lonnie's parents, SVU learns the truth of Lonnie's relationship with McKenna and the circumstances of Lonnie's imprisonment by Eastman. SVU then uncovers Eastman's involvement in Ceranda's murder through Sam Johnson after he is arrested, as well as the attack on the motel that killed Lonnie. With this, Eastman is arrested. As he is taken away, Eastman callously passes off his actions as him protecting his daughter, whilst being confident that they'll never be able to connect him to the crimes and telling a stunned McKenna to notify his brother for a lawyer. However, he was worried when Sergeant Odafin Tutuola told him there was no way he could get out of this.
A.D.A. Carisi is later given texts from Antonio and cash withdrawal documents that show that Eastman orchestrated the murders. He also planned to have the Johnson brothers testify against Eastman. Disgusted by his crimes, Carisi plans to ensure that Eastman does at least 25 years to life in prison. Benson later informs Lonnie and Ceranda's parents that Eastman will face serious jail time for kidnapping, rape, false incrimination, hate crimes, and facilitation of both Lonnie and Ceranda's murders.