Plot

After a murder helps uncover a scandal involving a city councilman, Horatio discovers that a sleazy defense attorney from his past may be blackmailing his clients into helping keep his other clients out of jail.

When freelance journalist Denise Baines is poisoned, the CSIs suspects her murder was provoked by a story she was doing on Miami Councilman Randall Stafford. After Stafford's DNA is found at her apartment, his attorneys Darren Vogel and Gabrielle Wade are able to dismiss the evidence on grounds of possible tampering, as Delko had to put the samples down out of his sight while intervening in a domestic dispute, which was probably staged to that end. The team suspects the journalist was actually preparing a story on Vogel, after discovering that Stafford helped cover up a murder committed by another of Vogel's clients, which suggests a pattern of manipulation using blackmail, the only way he could get junior partner Wade confess the only proven lawyer misconduct. Stafford manages to have a ballistic test by Boa Vista thrown out of court, even discredit her so all her evidence could compromise convictions based on it. Ryan argues that only his romantic rival' for her, the case's public prosecutor Josh Avery, was in a position to switch the contested bullet in her CSI lab.—KGF Vissers