‘Law & Order: SVU' has huge cast shakeup as 2 actors abruptly exit
Olivia Benson's elite squad is losing two of their own.
Octavio Pisano, who portrays Detective Joe Velasco, and Juliana Martinez, who is Detective Kate Silva on 'Law & Order: SVU,' are exiting the NBC series at the end of Season 26.
Pisano, 38, joined the drama during Season 23 as a former undercover agent turned Special Victims Unit detective.
8 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' – Season 26.
Peter Kramer/NBC
8 Octavio Pisano as Detective Joe Velasco.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
Martinez, 34, only joined the cast during Season 26 as a former Brooklyn Homicide Unit detective who transferred over to the 16th Precinct.
Neither have yet to publicly comment on the news.
Martinez, however, did take to Instagram on April 17 to share photos of the cast.
'I hope you tuned into Law & Order Crossover and Organized Crime tonight!! It's also a SZN wrap on SVU. ♥️ Thankful to everyone who has tuned in and this whole, wonderful cast tonight,' she wrote. 'Y'all ruled my world x.'
8 Juliana Aidén Martinez as Det. Kate Silva.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
8 Octavio Pisano on 'Law & Order: SVU.'
Peter Kramer/NBC
Despite calling it a 'SZN wrap on SVU,' the series is currently still going with the season finale, 'Post-Rage,' airing on May 15.
'Law & Order: SVU' follows detectives from the Special Victims Unit as they investigate and prosecute sexually based crimes. Many episodes are loosely ripped from the headlines.
The series — created by Dick Wolf — premiered 1999 with Mariska Hargitay (Olivia Benson), Christopher Meloni (Elliot Stabler), Dann Florek (Donald Cragen), Richard Belzer (John Munch) and Ice-T (Odafin Tutuola), as the titular cast.
8 Mariska Hargitay as Capt. Olivia Benson, Juliana AideÌn Martinez as Det. Kate Silva, AimeÌ Donna Kelly as Capt. Curry, Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco.
Peter Kramer/NBC
Hargitay, 61, still leads the show with Ice-T, 67, while Meloni, 64, exited in 2011.
The actor now stars in the spinoff 'Law & Order: Organized Crime,' which is airing its fifth season on Peacock.
In April, Hargitay reflected on starring on the procedural show for 26 years.
8 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' – Season 26.
Peter Kramer/NBC
8 Juliana AideÌn Martinez on 'Law & Order: SVU.'
Peter Kramer/NBC
'It feels like running a marathon, and when you're in it, all you see is this much ahead of you. I've been so busy, so challenged and it requires so much of me that all I can do is be on the treadmill of trying to keep up,' she said while on 'Sunday Today With Willie Geist.'
Hargitay sees parallels between her and Benson climbing up the ranks of their perspective fields.
'I would describe it as sort of the perfect feminist story,' she expressed at the time. 'There are these stepping stones of growth and integration and owning something. It's been such a beautiful evolution and such a beautiful journey.'
8 Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco, Ice T as Sgt. Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola, Juliana Aidén Martinez as Det. Kate Silva, Mariska Hargitay as Capt. Olivia Benson, Peter Scanavino as A.D.A Dominick 'Sonny' Carisi Jr., Kevin Kane as Det. Terry Bruno.
Ralph Bavaro/NBC via Getty Images
The actress confirmed the casting stories, that she and Meloni stepped into a room together and Wolf, 78, said 'that's it.'
'Absolutely,' Hargitay stated when Geist, 50, asked if she felt that way too. 'It was sort of a once in a lifetime experience. I knew quickly this we had this kind of magical chemistry. Chris and I are polar opposites in terms of who we are as people and yet there was this ying yang. When they paired us I was like, 'Oh this is done.''
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
West Virginia prosecutor warned his colleagues could charge women for miscarriages. He didn't say they actually will
In late May and early June 2025, a rumor spread online that West Virginia prosecutors planned to start issuing felony charges against women who have miscarriages. This claim is misleading. It comes from a misunderstanding of comments made by Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman, who wished to warn people that it may be possible for prosecutors to charge people who miscarry using state laws governing disposal of human remains. However, Truman emphasized that he does not personally want to or plan to prosecute anyone under these conditions. West Virginia law does not explicitly state that fetal remains are equivalent to human remains. The state treats fetuses as "distinct victims" in "certain crimes of violence," but it does not have a law giving fetuses the same total legal rights as people. Furthermore, prosecutors have broad discretion and authority to decide on bringing charges and how to pursue a case. Thus, it is possible a West Virginia prosecutor could try to charge someone for the disposal of fetal remains after a miscarriage, but it is difficult to determine whether the charge would hold up in court. In late May and early June 2025, a rumor spread online that West Virginia prosecutors would begin charging women who have miscarriages with crimes. The claim spread on platforms including X, Facebook, Threads and Reddit. Some posts specified that a miscarriage starting at nine weeks of pregnancy would result in a felony charge; many attributed the information to Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman. However, this claim is misleading, as it comes from a misunderstanding of Truman's comments to West Virginia news station WVNS, in which he said a prosecutor in the state might, in theory, file criminal charges against people who miscarried using laws governing disposal of human remains. Truman told Snopes he does not personally believe prosecuting people for disposal of fetal remains after a miscarriage is appropriate and he does not know of any prosecutors who have concrete plans to do so. "I was just trying to send out a warning to people," Truman said in a phone call. The West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute said in an email that it does not offer legal advice and thus cannot comment on whether West Virginia law would allow such prosecutions, but its executive director, Jim Samples, said he had not received any inquiries on the subject since he started there in mid-December 2024. Snopes also reached out to the national Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and the National District Attorneys Association to inquire whether these organizations have reason to believe West Virginia prosecutors may begin charging people who have miscarriages for improper disposal of human remains. We await their responses. In a May 30, 2025, interview with West Virginia news station WVNS, Truman said he heard a number of prosecuting attorneys discussing their willingness "to file criminal charges against women in pregnancy loss situations by using state law related to the disposal of human remains." While Truman confirmed the accuracy of the interview, he clarified that the conversation with these attorneys occurred "years ago," before the Supreme Court reversed the federal right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade in 2022. "Some of the really anti-abortion prosecutors were looking for about anything they could find," Truman said. "Comments were made casually, and at the time it got my attention, but it didn't really mean much before Roe was overturned." But then Roe fell — and West Virginia began enforcing its near-total ban on abortion. Truman also pointed to language in the West Virginia Code, passed by the state Legislature, defining fetuses and embryos as "separate and distinct" victims from the pregnant person for "certain crimes of violence," as well as a 2016 West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals decision affirming the conviction of a woman for involuntary manslaughter, concealment of a deceased human body and other offenses related to the death of her 26-day-old infant son. Per pages 16 and 17 of the decision, the woman helped law enforcement find the infant's grave site within 48 hours of his death — and an autopsy could not confirm cause of death. However, the state successfully argued that she still did not meet the requirements of West Virginia law on the "concealment of a deceased human body." The law requires a person to "affirmatively" notify law enforcement not only within 48 hours of concealing the body, but prior to being contacted by law enforcement in connection with the death. Taken altogether, Truman said, he is concerned that "some of the people hell-bent on prosecuting folks" for miscarriages might do so by getting "creative" with case law and by using the broad powers of prosecutorial discretion, or the authority a prosecutor has to decide whether to file charges and what charges to file. "All of a sudden, it became — what was pretty far-fetched became a possibility," Truman said. Truman advised West Virginia residents to protect themselves from possible prosecution by immediately informing the relevant county prosecuting attorney's office or law enforcement when a miscarriage occurs. There is some precedent to Truman's concerns, at least in other states. Snopes confirmed in April that police arrested a Georgia woman on charges of improper disposal and notification of a dead body after she miscarried and put the fetal remains in a dumpster. (The prosecutor's office later dropped the charges, according to reports.) Furthermore, an organization called Pregnancy Justice found in a September 2024 report — see Page 2 — that at least 210 people have faced criminal charges related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss and birth, and that 22 of those cases involved "a fetal or infant demise and allegations regarding conduct concerning pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth." However, West Virginia, unlike Georgia and similar states with anti-abortion laws, does not have a broad fetal-personhood law as of this writing — a legislative attempt to pass one in 2024 stalled. Fetal personhood is the idea that a fetus has the same legal rights as a person; not having a fetal-personhood law makes it less likely that West Virginia law on human remains is considered applicable to fetal remains. Furthermore, West Virginia law does not penalize patients who receive abortions, only the people who perform the operation — and another state law explicitly states that a miscarriage is not an abortion. An attorney with Pregnancy Justice, Kulsoom Ijaz, told WVNS, the same outlet Truman spoke to, that while she believes West Virginia law bars prosecutors from charging a woman in relation to her own abortion or miscarriage, "there are countless unjust and unfounded prosecutions every day in this country." Some claims said that West Virginia prosecutors would begin charging people whose miscarriages happened just nine weeks into a pregnancy. That rumor appeared to be based off a line in the WVNS story: "Truman added that women who miscarry at nine weeks or later could potentially face charges." This timeline, Truman said in an email to Snopes, came from the state law, which recognizes an embryo or fetus as a "distinct unborn victim." Under that law, a fetus is, by definition, a developing human "eight weeks after fertilization or ten weeks after the onset of the last menstrual period" — in other words, around nine weeks. He also pointed to a state law that provides definitions for "fetal death." But none of the laws Truman referenced explicitly states that fetal remains are equal to human remains under state law, meaning it is difficult to determine whether a prosecutor could successfully bring a case applying laws about the disposal and notification of human remains to fetal remains. To summarize, while at least one prosecuting attorney in West Virginia said he believes other prosecutors in the state could find a way to charge a person who had a miscarriage in relation to the disposal of fetal remains, the law did not, at the time of this writing, explicitly endorse this belief — nor was there any indication that prosecutors in West Virginia had active plans to pursue such cases. Bach, Wendy, and Madalyn Wasilczuk. Pregnancy as a Crime: A Preliminary Report on the First Year after Dobbs. Sept. 2024, Accessed 5 June 2025. Deng, Grace. "Yes, Georgia Woman Was Arrested after Having Miscarriage. Here Are the Facts." Snopes, Snopes Media Group, 1 Apr. 2025, Accessed 5 June 2025. Farrish, Jessica. "Attorney for Pregnancy Rights Group Says West Virginia Law Protects Women Who Miscarry." WVNS, 4 June 2025, Accessed 5 June 2025. ---. "Prosecutor Warns of Potential Charges against Women Who Miscarry in West Virginia." WVNS, 31 May 2025, Accessed 5 June 2025. Frye, Jr, Andrew N. "State v. McDaniel ." Justia Law, 12 Oct. 2016, Accessed 5 June 2025. González-Ramírez, Andrea. "Prosecutor Drops Charges over Georgia Woman's Miscarriage." The Cut, 4 Apr. 2025, Accessed 5 June 2025. "House Bill 5041." Accessed 5 June 2025. "West Virginia Code Section 16-2R-3." West Virginia Code, Accessed 5 June 2025. "West Virginia Code Section 16-2R-4." West Virginia Code, Accessed 5 June 2025. "West Virginia Code Section 16-5-1." West Virginia Code, Accessed 5 June 2025. "West Virginia Code Section 61-2-5A." West Virginia Code, Accessed 5 June 2025. "West Virginia Code Section 61-2-30." West Virginia Code, Accessed 5 June 2025.
Chicago Tribune
6 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the US, charged with human smuggling as attorneys vow ongoing fight
To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement. Now it returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welken in a phone interview Saturday President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. 'The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine,' he said. 'There are two ways you could have done it, and they decided to do it that way.' Trump said it should 'be a very easy case.' In announcing Abrego Garcia's return Attorney General Pam Bondi called him 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,' the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. 'The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 'Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from 'Pupuseria Cecilia,'' his lawyers wrote. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for 'rent money' and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S. Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George's County, just outside Washington. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail. In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia's asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a 'well-founded fear' of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him.' In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker in a telephone interview President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. 'There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Buzz Feed
7 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
Why Mindy Kaling Took A Break From Acting
At this point, Mindy Kaling is an undeniable multihyphenate. From Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls to Velma and Running Point, it honestly feels like we've gotten a show that she's created or written every time we switch on our TVs. Mindy's been so ever-present behind the scenes that it's honestly been easy to forget that we were all introduced to her as an actor — especially in the classic NBC TV show The Office (which, to be clear, she also wrote for). These days, however, Mindy isn't in front of the camera all that often. She's done some voice work on Velma and Monsters at Work, and she's made the occasional appearance on The Morning Show, but that's about it. During a recent public appearance (via The Hollywood Reporter), Mindy addressed her recent absence as an actor — especially when it came to making a cameo on Never Have I Ever, which she ultimately decided not to do. 'A show literally about an Indian American family in Southern California, and if I wasn't on that—what's wrong with me?' she joked. 'I think there is a part of me that feels a little superstitious,' she continued. 'I'm like, these seem to have gone well and I'm not in them so maybe I'll wait.' Mindy also admitted that she does "miss" acting, and that she "would like to write or co-create a show for me to act in soon" — particularly because doing so would be 'unbelievably fun and it's so efficient.' 'I would love to do that again,' she said. 'That's the thing that maybe in the next couple years, when I launch a couple other things that are earlier in the pipeline, that would be something that would be fun to do again.' We'll see what happens!
