Law and Order: SVU Promotes Octavio Pisano to Series Regular in Season 23

McGrath’s mole is going to stick around the squad room for the foreseeable future.

Octavio Pisano has been promoted to series regular on Law & Order: SVU, TVLine has learned.

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The actor first appeared on the NBC procedural earlier this season when his character. Det. Joe Velasco, was a super-secret undercover officer involved in SVU’s bust of Congressman Howard. He later helped Rollins track down one of the politician’s missing victims, cajoling her into helping the police by sharing a traumatic story from his own abusive childhood. After he was successful, however, Velasco admitted to Rollins that he’d embellished the story in order to secure the victim’s participation. (Read a full recap.)

In the Oct. 7 episode, Velasco was assigned to a more permanent position at SVU, leading Benson and her team to suspect that he was there to spy on the team and relay information to his old boss, Chief McGrath.

Pisano played Sultan in CBS All Access’ Coyote. His other TV credits include If Loving You Is Wrong and the pilot for the revival of Dick Wolf’s New York Undercover, on which ABC passed in 2019.

Are you looking forward to seeing more of Velasco around the police station? Sound off in the comments!

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