thats why its fiction. for those who can't tell, there's a disclaimer. "the characters and events are fictional ...blah blah".
If you ever watched the show, and paid attention, you'd know that this particular show is built on the oft-repeated claim that its story lines are "fact-based." The small- print disclaimer is to protect the producers against law suits, and is directly contradicted by the commercials and opening titles' trumpeting that the shows are "ripped from the headlines" and "fact-based."
This is one of the reasons that over all these years of Law & Order in so many different incarnations, I have only watched the documentary-style Crime & Punishment version more than twice. It drives me crazy when I see a real-life story gutted of its actual lessons so the creators of the TV show can substitute their own irrelevant ones.