White Collar Episode 1.04 Flip of the Coin

Peter thinks he's in for it when Elizabeth shows up at the office with her friend Dana in tow. But Peter isn't the one in trouble this time; it's Dana's husband, Captain John Mitchell, who is in the hot seat.

Recently returned from his final tour in Iraq, John is wanted by the FBI for smuggling stolen Iraqi artifacts into the country. John swears he's innocent. Another man, Patrick Aimes, had asked him to bring some goods back to the United States, but John refused. However, overwhelming fingerprint and DNA evidence say otherwise.

Still, Peter and Neal think there is something to John's story, and their suspicions deepen after Peter pays a visit to Patrick Aimes. A re-examination of the artifacts yields a stunning realization - someone had to have planted John's prints. But who? All signs point to Alisha Teagen, a reporter embedded with John's unit in Iraq. The question is, how to link her to Aimes?

Peter and Neal pay Teagen a visit at work, but the cagey reporter is wary of Peter's questioning. Meanwhile, Neal filches a closely guarded pawnshop ticket from Teagen's locked desk that leads them to a gold Iraqi coin. It's the crucial piece of evidence they need to pin Aimes and Teagen to the crime, but it was obtained illegally. Without any recourse, Neal and Peter must find a way to make the evidence stick, or watch as John is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit.