Alexandra Cabot - Second Reappearance On SVU

Second Reappearance On SVU

The explanation of Cabot's return from Witness Protection to the DA's office in Conviction was finally revealed in the SVU Season 10 episode, "Lead", where she reveals to the SVU detectives that she has been asked by DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) to step in for ADA Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus), when Greylek was called back to the Justice Department. At that point, she had not told her former colleagues of her return; it is implied, and later confirmed, that she is still traumatized by her attempted murder. The detectives learn she had left Witness Protection after Velez was murdered in prison and Connors was extradited to Ireland. Sometime between 2006 and 2007, she stepped down from the position of Homicide Bureau Chief and is replaced by Christine Danielson (Gloria Reuben). Cabot begins work in the Appeals Bureau until her return to SVU. She remains at SVU for the remainder of the season, in which she appears in six episodes in what Cabot calls a "temporary" role. She replaced Novak and Greyleck.

In the Season 11 premiere, it is revealed that Cabot is training in Albany, and will eventually work back to the Appeals Bureau. McCoy asks Executive ADA Sonya Paxton (Christine Lahti) to assume Cabot's role ("Unstable"). In the fourth episode of Season 11, Paxton shows up drunk to trial; it is revealed that she is an alcoholic. She is ordered to go through court-mandated rehabilitation and has to leave her role at SVU. Cabot returns in the fifth episode, commenting that she had "clawed her way" out of Appeals to return to SVU, to prosecute a man running a pedophile advocacy group. In this episode, Stephanie March is added to the Season 11 opening credits as a series regular (though only in episodes in which she appears). In the eighth episode, Detectives Benson and Stabler are informed that Cabot had been accused of withholding evidence and is being investigated by Liam Black, a member of the State bar association. In that same episode, Paxton returns to give Cabot some "much needed advice".

In "Witness," Cabot tries a rape case with an illegal immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo as her star witness. The witness was a rape victim in the Congo herself, and Cabot works to help her get asylum, as well as trying the rape case, which then becomes a murder case after the victim dies from an infection caused by a large cut sustained during the rape. Cabot succeeds in getting the rapist convicted and gets the witness a visa that would allow her to remain in the United States without fear of being deported. However, the case affects both the witness and Cabot; the witness decides to return to the Congo to help rape victims there, while Cabot decides to take a leave of absence and joins the Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes sex crimes and other human rights abuses in areas such as the Congo. She is replaced by ADA Jo Marlowe (Sharon Stone) in the 21st episode "Torch".