
Denise Pikering (also known as Cassandra Sullivan and Loretta Sheridan) is a secondary antagonist in the Law & Order: SVU episode, "Pretend".
She was portrayed by Misty Traya.
History[]
Background[]
Denise was born in 1978 in Detroit in an abusive home. She was arrested when she was sixteen and was removed from her home and placed in custody by a women named Jeannie Hayes, where she grew up happy. However when Denise turned eighteen, since she had already aged out of the system and was forced to enter the world on her own. However, she soon decided that she would not leave the system. And soon she possessed herself as a teenager to return to the system, she repeated the cycle so many times that she started to believe that she was even sixteen. She soon owned like Loretta Sheridan and attended Allentown Warner High School, and she mixed with the rest of the students. However the authorities soon became suspicious of her. So she soon had to go New York and sneak into the adoption system, where she happened to be Cassandra Sullivan and started going out with Scott Heston and Riley Cuskey.
Law and Order: SVU[]
Pretend[]
Then when Scott was arrested for killing his best friend Riley by accident, but Denise realizes by the way that Riley died that Scott he simply did on purpose, to have Cassandra alone for him. Afterwards Denise visits ADA Casey Novak in court and after ending all discussions and introducing herself as Riley's girlfriend. After Cassandra tells her how intimate the three were, Denise also tells Novak how Scott writes to her, and saying how sorry he is for Riley's death. Then Denise and Novak hear the veredict that was not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter in the second in the second degree, but guilty of murder for criminal neglect. After the trial, Denise prepares to leave, Scott tries to speak to him, but Denise ignores him just by looking at him with comptempt. And when Novak arrives at Denise's house to talk to her, Denise then reveals what happened between her and Scott, and that Scott learned about femonal artery, and that Scott cut Riley off in an anatomy class a week before the murder.
And then when SVU Detectives Benson visited Denise to convince her to be a witness at Riley's hearing, initially Denise blames herself for Riley's murder, and then Benson says that this will be the only way to make peace with Riley. Then the next day. Then the next day, Denise is run over by a car, breaking her left leg and jaw. When she is taken to a hospital in Mercy General for treatment. Benson visits her at the hospital and she reveals that one of Scott's friends, Keith, was behind the wheel and received about $ 500 to make her lose her hearing. Then when the detectives, Benson and Stabler discover that she is not called Cassandra, and that she is not a teenager but an adult through DNA, Cassandra then denies everything to the detectives, and despite that, Stabler and Benson discover everything about her, and Denise is expelled from school and the welfare system and is forced to move to a shelter that Novak recommended. Later, when Scott discovered Denise's real identity and age, his lawyer then accused her of raping him as his legal defense in an attempt to defend Scott. Novak then convinces Denise to accept the agreement, but Denise continues to insist that it is Cassandra. Denise without much choice tells Novak that she wants to go to court to clear her name instead of a public defender doing it for her. At her trial, she receives instructions from the judge in her case. She then questions Scott on the bench after he finishes witnessing for Novak, and on interrogation, Denise manages to make Scott angrily admit that he killed Riley so that he could have Denise just for him, Scott then furiously tries to attack her, but is restrained by security guards and taken into custody for their crimes while he angrily yells that he hates Denise for what she did to him.
After Novak brings Jeannie Hayes to speak with Denise, they then show them pictures of Denise's ex-boyfriends, and she then remembers and says that they were my loves and that they got older and didn't.