Chester Lake

Detective Chester Lake was a detective with the Brooklyn Special Victims Unit who was transferred to the Manhattan Special Victims Unit and partnered with Odafin Tutuola.

Arrest
In 2008, after shooting and killing fellow police officer Edward Kralik, Lake was revealed to be a part of the VDOQ Society based in Philadelphia. Once a month, the group met to hear presentations from law enforcement and redirected attention on unsolved homicides. The group worked without politics or bosses to get justice for the victims of cold cases. Lake was revealed to have been obsessed with solving the rape and murder of Alisa Hernandez ten years before, which was his first case. Lake later apparently kidnapped the only witness, Cecelia Cruz, but a reconstruction of Kralik's shooting exonerated Lake of murder and revealed the existence of a third shooter who Lake was trying to protect Cecelia from. Lake was eventually found in an abandoned building, where Fin talked him into surrendering for Cecelia's sake. The third shooter, Officer Thomas Crane of the Fugitive Apprehension Team, then attempted to murder Lake as he surrendered. However, the SVU had managed to tie Kralik and Crane together, and Benson and Stabler arrested Crane in time to save Lake's life.

Lake later testified at Crane's rape and murder trial, where he explained that he had met with Kralik and attempted to collect a DNA sample before he was ambushed. However, Lake perjured himself on the stand, claiming that he had no knowledge that Alisa's rape kit was too damaged to be useful. The case ultimately ended in a mistrial, with the jury deadlocked in favor of exoneration, while Cecelia was deported. Realizing that they couldn't win the case, Lake killed Crane that night and was arrested and imprisoned for the crime. As he was taken into custody, he solemnly looked at the other detectives and ADA Casey Novak without saying a word. He was last seen being loaded up in a car that drove off to rikers.

Appearances

 * Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
 * Season 8: “Outsider” • “Screwed”
 * Season 9

Trivia

 * Lake is the only main character in SVU to be arrested and imprisoned for a crime.