‘FBI: International’: Vinessa Vidotto Previews ‘Infuriating’ Case and How Vo’s Involvement Led to Her Pulling From Experience (Exclusive)

Tuesday’s new episode of will be a powerful one, as it will center on the Fly Team taking a case involving a sexual assault victim who was arrested. Vinessa Vidotto’s Cameron Vo uses her sexual assault advocacy experience from her army days to help the victim get justice, and Vidotto spoke to PopCulture.com about what it will consist of.

“So this time around, we’ve got a sexual assault victim who’s American, and she’d been traveling Europe, and she was assaulted in a hostel, and she tried to go to the police and report that,” Vidotto explained. “And sometimes people of power, they become jaded or very biased or just unwelcoming, and they did not believe her. And obviously, that’s really infuriating. It calls us in, and we have to figure out why is she being held by the police. What’s going on? Where can we find this guy? So it takes us down a rabbit hole more than just trying to find the sex offender, but it also speaks on people of power and how you think that the people that should be on your side, sometimes they’re not, and you have to, I don’t know, how would I say, put people in their place in a way.”

With Vo’s experience, she tries to make sure the victim is given the justice she deserves. While Vidotto “wasn’t really given a breakdown or in-depth details of what Vo did during her time in SART,” she “can just pull from my instincts and my time in college as a resident assistant, a night assistant, summer coordinator. And we had to deal with some real hot topics on campus that were happening. There were thoughts of suicide, there was alcohol poisoning, and I had to deal with those and write up the reports and be in the room when those things were happening.”

“So even though all these topics are different, you’ve got sexual assault, you’ve got alcohol poisoning, you’ve got suicide, and I think it just comes down to the basics of connecting with them, trying to really understand them, provide the guidance because they’re lost and they don’t know what to do,” Vidotto continued. “They’ve been traumatized. Something internally is happening to them, and you need to bring clarity and confidence and guidance, and also space, a lot of space. You can’t keep hounding them, asking them questions over and over again. You have to let them think things through and breathe and just be there. Just be a person next to them in support. So that’s all I can really say.”

While FBI: International has done sexual assault storylines before, it doesn’t get any easier. The new episode may be a tough one to watch at times, but it’s definitely an important one. There is no telling how the episode will go, but it will surely be a case that the Fly Team will be able to crack. As for what Vinessa Vidotto wants fans to take away from the episode after they watch it this Tuesday, Mar. 26 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS’ spring 2024 schedule, she says, “I think back to me in my early 20s or even my teens; I would always watch 20/20 or Dateline.”

“You’d see these horrific stories of whatever kind. It doesn’t have to be sexual assault, it’s just whatever,” Vidotto continued. “But I would watch them and tell myself, ‘Okay, now I know I won’t let that happen.’ But even if you watch them and you say, ‘That would never happen to me, or now I know,’ life happens, and you’re in your 20s, you’re in college, you’re doing things. And I’ve looked back, and I can see moments where I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m so lucky that something bad didn’t happen.’ I put myself in a situation. So I’m not trying to say that watching these episodes are to strike fear, but I think it’s more to educate. When you watch things, they educate you, have heart, it’s just everything. That’s what I can really connect with and walk away with when I watch these things. It comes from a motherly instinct, even though I’m not a mom, but just something you can look and say, ‘Okay, now I know.’”