Police detective Ray Duquette suspects the trio are working a scam.
After the payout, it is revealed that Sam and the two girls were accomplices who used the trial to extort money from Sandra. Sam and Kenneth negotiate an $8.5 million settlement for defamation, which Sandra pays out using funds from a trust Kelly would receive only upon Sandra's death. At trial, Suzie succumbs to pressure during cross-examination, and admits that she and Kelly concocted the false allegations to get revenge on Sam: Suzie for his failure to bail her out of jail on a minor drug charge, and Kelly for his affair with her mother, wealthy heiress Sandra Van Ryan. Sam hires attorney Kenneth Bowden to defend him. Following the accusation, her outcast classmate Suzie Toller, who comes from a poor family in the Everglades, makes a similar accusation. In the upscale Miami suburb of Blue Bay, popular and wealthy Kelly Van Ryan accuses her high school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo, of raping her.
