You liked her, even during her ratting out ways on HBO's "The Sopranos." Now, Drea de Matteo is coming to "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" early next year.

De Matteo will play a battered wife in an upcoming episode, seeking help from Benson and Stabler. The two main characters are played by stars Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni.

De Matteo's character will only be able to watch in horror as her husband -- whose casting has not been announced -- beats her son, and then beats her despite the fact she's pregnant.

The 38-year-old actress gained fame on 'The Sopranos" playing Adriana la Cerva, the better half of Christopher Moltisanti, then portrayed by Michael Imperioli, who now plays in ABC's freshman drama "Detroit 1-8-7." Although Adriana was originally conceived as a one-shot character, de Matteo became part of "The Sopranos" family for most of the entire series' run. She even won an Emmy for her work on the show, where she also portrayed a victim of domestic violence.

La Cerva as killed off the show in 2004 after 56 episodes when it was revealed she was feeding information about Christopher's mod activities to the feds.

After leaving "The Sopranos," de Matteo ended up on another high-profile show at the time, "Joey," starring "Friends" alum Matt LeBlanc. However, "Joey lasted only a couple of lackluster seasons.

Recently, de Matteo has joined some other high-profile shows. She played Wendy Teller for six episodes of the critically acclaimed "Sons of Anarchy." Following that, she spent a year on Wisteria Lane as Angie Bolen, the center of Season 6's ongoing mystery arc on ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

"Law & Order: SVU" airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. It has averaged a 5.6 rating/9 share in Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co., flat with the timeslot's performance the year before. It is doing slightly better than its lead-out show, the freshman spinoff "Law & Order: Los Angeles," which has helped NBC improve its Wednesday 10 p.m. performance by 18 percent compared to last year.