A woman, Abby, kisses her boyfriend goodbye and goes off to a spiritual retreat. At the retreat, the leader gives everyone some type of drink but Abby doesn't take it. Later, her boyfriend Steven comes to SVU and tells Olivia that his girlfriend has been raped.

Abby gives an account of how she didn't take the drink because she knew it was laced with a hallucinogenic drug. She went into the meditation room by herself and Trask, the leader, came in. He gave her water and she felt disoriented and unable to move while he had sex with her.

The SVU team suspects a date rape drug was used, but Abby's tox screen comes back negative. Barba thinks maybe she was hypnotized. This sounds bizarre but the team finds out another woman had the same experience. The other woman died of cancer, but her attorney shows them a video and her testimony is word for word the same.

The team continues to investigate Trask and finds out that he used to have a heroin problem and went to a rehab that specialized in hypnotherapy. Through talking with his therapist, they find out that he learned hypnotism while he was there. Trask meets with the therapist, who pretends to have had a similar problem. He admits on tape to having hypnotized women to have sex with them and is arrested.

At trial, Trask's attorney claims the sex was consensual. When Abby testifies, during cross she makes her read a statement she wrote on her application for the retreat. Abby doesn't want to and Barba gets a recess over the defense attorney's objections. Abby tells Benson that if she reads the statement, her boyfriend will know she was unhappy with him and leave her, but Benson convinces her to testify.

The defense tries to claim that Abby went there to cheat on Steven. He believes it and walks out. A recording is presented in which Abby appears to agree to the sex.

Afterwards, the defense attorney wants a deal where Trask will not be registered as a sex offender. Benson is upset about this and says Abby wants to go to the jury. Barba reluctantly agrees to try the case but has no way to prove the sex wasn't consensual.

Carisi finds out that Trask was arrested 22 years ago. Barba decides to use this. At trial, Trask denies that he has ever been arrested. Barba calls the arresting officer, who testifies that Trask left his friend to overdose of heroin and die.

Trask is found guilty, but Steven won't return Abby's calls. Benson advises her that if Steven won't understand what happened, he isn't worth fighting for.