page_title: List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit characters
section_title: Special Agent Dana Lewis
hierarchical_section_title: List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit characters / Minor characters / Special Agent Dana Lewis
caption_attribution_description: Marcia Gay Harden at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
context_page_description: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a spin-off of the crime drama Law & Order, follows the detectives who work in the "Special Victims Unit" of the 16th Precinct of the New York City Police Department, a unit that focuses on crimes involving rape, sexual assault, and child molestation, as well as any crime loosely connected with any of the three, such as domestic violence, kidnapping, and child abandonment. Since its debut in September 1999, the series has followed the career of Olivia Benson, as she progresses from the rank of Detective, working with a partner, to Lieutenant, replacing Donald Cragen as commanding officer of SVU, and then to Captain. The unit also has a prosecutor assigned from the District Attorney's office, and frequently interacts with medical examiners and psychiatrists.
context_section_description: Portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden
  Episodes: "Raw", "Informed", "Penetration", & "Secrets Exhumed"
  FBI Agent Dana Lewis, who first introduced in the season 7 episode "Raw" while working undercover to bring down a white supremacist group as "Star Morrison". Lewis (while undercover as Star) slaps Munch and calls him "kike" as a part of her cover, prompting her arrest for assaulting a police officer. She's forced to blow her cover and reveal herself as a Federal Agent during the trial against the group's leader when she shoots and kills the leader's son before he could kill Stabler. She tries to apologize for her actions after the case is over, but Munch holds no grudge. Agent Lewis specializes in undercover work, often working under assumed identities for weeks or even months at a time. While working undercover, she uses the name Star Morrison and speaks with a Southern accent (though the actress herself is not from the South). In the season 8 premiere "Informed", she shows up in New York again when Detective Benson is hounding her eco-terrorism informant to tell her about her rape. Lewis and Benson must find the informant after she goes missing and stop her from conducting a terrorist bombing. Lewis mentions to Benson that she calls her informant "Peggy Sue" because she reminds Lewis of her baby sister, Margaret. In her last appearance, Lewis tells Benson and Stabler that her family (husband and children) is currently living in Europe to protect them from criminals who attempt to retaliate against her. One of these criminals, the leader of the aforementioned supremacist group, ordered a fellow inmate to attack and rape her in the season 12 episode "Penetration". Elliot Stabler has been injured each time she has worked with them, by gunshot in season 7, by explosives in season 8, and by gunshot again in season 12 which was the only injury she was directly responsible for. Stabler half-jokingly refers to her as a "jinx", saying "[he's] nearly been killed" every time Lewis shows up; she counters his remarks by saying that maybe she is his "good luck charm", as he's survived every injury during their three episodes together.
  In the season 14 episode, "Secrets Exhumed", Agent Lewis returns to partner with SVU when she believes that a Manhattan cold case is connected to several rape-homicides across the country. Lewis beats Detectives Benson and Amaro to the Miami correctional facility where the detectives were supposed to rearrest the suspect, a handicapped man, who was being released after completing his stint for another crime. Lewis accompanies Benson and Amaro back to Manhattan, where she observes the interrogation and pleads with Captain Cragen to let her have a shot at the suspect after the detectives could not get the man to admit to killing the fifth victim. When Cragen obliges, Lewis sweats the suspect into admitting he was at the scene when the victim was murdered. Amaro begins to question the confession when the boyfriend of the victim comes to the precinct and Lewis says that he was an old friend from when they dated in college at Tulane University. Pieces of the confession begin to fall apart as Munch and Rollins finds evidence missing in the cold case file and the boyfriend of the victim admits to having a romantic relationship with Agent Lewis. Amaro then gets the suspect to recant his confession and Lewis begins to seem increasingly panicked. Cragen gets Lewis to believe that the handicapped suspect had an accident and he will be awhile before her and Benson could re-interview him. As Benson begins to ask Lewis questions, Lewis realizes that Benson's questioning seemed interrogation-like. Benson and Amaro begin to ask Lewis pressing questions about the nature of Lewis' relationship with the victim and her boyfriend at the time. They get her to admit they had a several-month-long romantic relationship, which subsequently got Lewis pregnant. After he forced Lewis to get an abortion, she found out that he asked the victim to marry him. Lewis, in tears, admits she went to the victim's home, and after the victim taunted
caption: Special Agent Dana Lewis was portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in episodes "Raw", "Informed", "Penetration", & "Secrets Exhumed".
exif: {}