Casey Novak is a fictional character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Diane Neal.
[3] While prosecuting a case, she deliberately sabotages a competency hearing for a schizophrenic child rapist to avoid him being extradited to Louisiana where he would face the death penalty.
Novak prosecuted white collar crimes before being assigned full-time to the 16th Precinct in October 2003, after Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), thought to be dead, transfers into the Witness Protection Program.
Following her first case, Novak asks District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson) to reassign her because she feels she cannot handle the intensity of prosecuting sex crimes, especially those committed against children.
[7] Novak arrives on the scene with guns blazing, intent on leaving her mark on the bureau, and immediately antagonizes detectives Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) by taking a hands-on approach, second-guessing their detective work and interfering with their interrogation of a suspect.
[8] By the sixth season, however, she has a good relationship with the SVU detectives, particularly Stabler, who is especially enraged when she is attacked and beaten up, and risks his career by threatening the man he believed to have done it.
Like her predecessor, Alexandra Cabot, she has, at various times, run afoul of stern, by-the-book Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin).
Donnelly, now a judge, calls Novak into her chambers and informs her that the DA had declined to refile charges against the defendant because of her actions.
Donnelly informs Novak that she is facing censure by the Bar and a suspension of her license to practice law for at least a year.
[13] Novak returns to SVU in the season 12 episode "Reparations", and reveals she was censured but not disbarred; her license was suspended for three years.
Novak subsequently makes a deal with Dekker for his cousin's breaking and entering charge and has the accuser arrested for perjury.
[15] She is first seen in the season's third episode "Blood Brothers", in which the SVU squad is investigating the teenage son of a high-profile political couple.
"[16] Novak is the prosecutor in four episodes during season 13, sharing the ADA duties with Cabot, Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), and David Haden (Harry Connick Jr.) She is last seen as the lead prosecutor in "Valentine's Day", in which she goes up against Defense Attorney Marvin Exley (Ron Rifkin), who is defending a woman who seems to have fabricated her own abduction.