Alexandra Cabot

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For other uses, see Alexandra Cabot (disambiguation).

Alexandra Cabot
Law & Order character

Time on show	2000-2003 (SVU) 2006 (Conviction)
Preceded by	None (SVU and Conviction)
Succeeded by	Casey Novak (SVU) N/A (Conviction)
First appearance	Wrong Is Right (SVU) Pilot (Conviction)
Last appearance	Loss (SVU) Hostage (Conviction)
Portrayed by	Stephanie March

Alexandra Cabot is a fictional character within the Law & Order universe. She was a primary character in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Conviction. Cabot is portrayed by Stephanie March.

Cabot was hired to work with SVU as their permanent ADA to oversee the legality of its arrests, following a rotating mix of ADAs (among them Abbie Carmichael of the original Law & Order). She was known for her stubbornness, keen intelligence, and her cool, sometimes icy, demeanor. While she empathized with the sexual assault victims she dealt with, her strict code of legal ethics often forced her to make harsh decisions and judgments that went against her personal feelings.

She did occasionally bend the rules to suit her own notions of the meaning of justice, however, often with unpleasant results. In one case, she lied to detectives about having a search warrant in order to convict a serial child molester named Roy Barnett, and aggressively pressured a teenage boy named Sam Cavanaugh (played by Bret Harrison), who was one of the molester's victims, to testify against him. Sam later attempted suicide, leaving him with severe brain damage. She was let off with a one-month's suspension, as well as the (temporary) enmity of Judge Lena Petrovsky (who presided over the case), but never truly forgave herself.

Cabot was taken out of the show after an episode in which she was prosecuting a powerful drug dealer named Rafael Zapata, the right-hand man of Colombian drug lord Cesar Velez. She insisted on continuing the prosecution even after a credible threat was made towards her and her mother. She was eventually shot one night while saying good-bye to SVU detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson. Proclaimed dead, Cabot disappeared into the Witness Protection Program, assuming the identity of an insurance agent named Emily in Wisconsin. She insisted on telling Benson and Stabler the truth the night she left the city, however. She was replaced by Casey Novak.

Benson and Stabler were the only ones who knew the truth about Cabot's "death" until nearly two years later (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit Episode "Ghost"), when she came out of hiding to be a witness in a case against the assassin who tried to kill her. The hired killer, Liam Connors (formerly of the IRA), went to prison, having been found guilty under two counts of attempted murder (Cabot and eight-year-old Antonio Montoya), plus four counts of murder (Montoya's parents and a wealthy couple). Cabot quickly disappeared again under a new identity.

Her departure from witness protection and return to New York as a Bureau Chief in Conviction were not explained, as March was a last-minute addition to the cast and most of the early episodes had already been written before she was added. There were plans in a later episode to explain Cabot's departure from witness protection, and a greater exploration of her personal life and past was planned, but the cancellation of Conviction means that this will not be pursued. ^[1]