Kate Burton guest-stars as corrupt doctor on Law & Order: SVU — where you know her from

Kate Burton guest-starred as Dr. Bethany Allen in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Jan. 29 Season 27 episode “Hubris,” playing a Bronx Hospital child-abuse specialist whom Captain Olivia Benson ultimately exposed as corrupt. Burton is a veteran actor with more than four decades of work on television, film and stage, best known for recurring roles as Dr.

Ellis Grey on Grey’s Anatomy and Vice President Sally Langston on Scandal, for which she earned multiple Emmy nominations. Her TV credits also include Monty, Inventing Anna, The Dropout, Rescue Me, Bosch: Legacy and Echo 3, and her film credits range from Big Trouble in Little China to 127 Hours and Where’d You Go, Bernadette.

In “Hubris,” Dr. Bethany Allen heads the child abuse and neglect department and testified in family court that a young girl, Riley Williams, had a “nightstick” fracture consistent with abuse — testimony that helped place Riley into foster care. Riley later was forced into prostitution by a foster father, and Benson reopened the case after Riley insisted she wanted to return to her biological father, Nate Williams (Sean Patrick Thomas).

Benson’s team, including Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) and his assistant Cindy “C.J.” Jones (Norma Kuhling), uncovered a prior child-abuse case in which Allen’s testimony helped convict a mother. A doctor later found Allen had ordered a test for a congenital clotting disorder that could explain a baby’s brain bleed, but Allen omitted that result from her ruling.

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