‘Law & Order: SVU’: Cassidy Reveals Why He Really Left the Special Victims Unit

Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters) was at the center of Wednesday night’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit drama, and it ended with a shocking reveal about his past.

Cassidy spends a majority of the episode as the target of a murder investigation. He causes an outburst at a murder trial of a doctor accused of molesting young boys, causing a mistrial. The doctor is murdered not long after the hearing, so Cassidy is quickly accused.

He admits he went to the victim’s house to confront him about his crimes. When he arrived, he was then knocked unconscious and discovered the victim’s body.

After hiding out at apartment of his ex, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), his innocence is soon proved. However, it was not quite clear why Cassidy had been so riled up about this particular case.

At the end of the episode, Cassidy meets with attorney Peter Stone (Philip Winchester) to plead for him to take it easy on the real killer, who is one of the doctor’s victims.

“This kid is gonna be chasing demons away for the rest of his life,” Cassidy says. “Every relationship, every time this kid looks into a mirror, there’s gonna be this looming shadow that…”

Stone realizes that Cassidy is inferring that he, too, was molested as a child. Stone then assumes that Olivia knows about the incident. However, she does not.

Cassidy then confesses that it was the reason that he left the Special Victims Unit back during the show’s first season. At the time, he admitted he could not stomach a particularly grim rape case, but we now why exactly we was appalled.

“That’s why I left all those years ago,” Cassidy says. “I just couldn’t handle SVU.”

The DA investigator then details the sex crime that was committed against him by a baseball coach.

“It was my little league coach,” Cassidy says. “The truth is, it only went on for a couple months, and then my father found out and beat the crap out of the guy.”

Cassidy then departs, and runs into Olivia. He does not reveal what happened, but shares some kind words.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.