Caruso: It’s A Story About Trust

This week’s episode of CSI: Miami, “In Plane Sight”, features investment fraud reminiscent of the recent Bernie Madoff scandal. (Episode spoilers and embedded video after the jump.)

In the episode, the victim took money from his clients and ended up dead. “I think first and foremost it’s a story about trust,” leading man David Caruso (Horatio Caine) explained. “This is a man who invested not only in their finances but in their future. He decided to play around with those things … and people were devastated.”

Not only did the pain and destruction affect the financial victims, but the man’s family was destroyed by his actions. “I think that’s the bulk of the story we’re telling is that it’s not as simple as the finances are gone—as tragic as that is,” Caruso continued. “[L]iterally his whole family has been wrapped into this mess.”

“We’re doing the final scene in the episode right now in which I’m standing there with his wife who to some degree has survived,” the actor revealed. “He’s passed away, his son’s going to jail and she’s there alone attempting to start her life over.” Earlier in the episode, Horatio and Frank Tripp (Rex Linn) had to share some startling information with the wife. “[W]e revealed to her that in fact she doesn’t even have the whole story, and she’s been operating in the darkness,” Caruso said. Her husband had misled her, “and her situation becomes more and more tragic.”

“You know, our writers come up with some great ideas, and a lot of the ideas come from the real world like Bernie Madoff, and I think it’s appropriate,” Linn explained. “If you look on the internet and newspapers all the time, you see bizarre stories that happen every day. We’re now in our eighth season. I don’t know how our writers come up with everything, but they use real life stories to do it, and it’s a great episode too.”

“We’ve been pretty successful at being current with our episodes,” Caruso added. “This is a strange time because, as you know, there’s a certain amount of concern about the future and the economy and so-on, and for people to be wiped out overnight, I think that people will identify with that terror.”

You can view the original video below: