New York City "cannibal cop" convicted of plot to kidnap women

By Chris Francescani

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City police officer was convicted of plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women following a trial that shed light on an underworld of people who derive pleasure from fantasizing about cannibalism online.

A federal court jury on Tuesday also found Gilberto Valle, 28, guilty on a lesser charge of improperly accessing a law enforcement database to gather personal information about potential targets.

Prosecutors said Valle - dubbed the "cannibal cop" by the tabloid media - crossed the line from fantasy to reality in taking specific action conspiring to kidnap women. His defense attorney, Julia Gatto, countered that her client was merely engaged in fantasy role-play online.

Valle faces up to life in prison on the charge of conspiracy to kidnap and up to five years in prison for the database breach.

The jury of six women and six men had deliberated since Thursday, when federal prosecutor Hadassa Waxman said in her closing argument that Valle was at one point engaged in fantasy, but that his intentions had grown more sinister.

Pointing to his extensive online research on kidnapping, making chloroform and cooking women, she said, "These are real searches conducted to carry out real research to kidnap real women."

Gatto, the defense lawyer, told jurors that after nearly a year of fantasizing about roughly two dozen women - in many cases, discussing kidnapping with other fetishists - none of the plotters had ever met, exchanged money or committed any crimes.

Valle did not testify.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and John Wallace)

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Jurors begin deliberations in New York "cannibal cop" case

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's accused "cannibal cop" crossed the line from fantasy to reality in plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women, a federal prosecutor told a jury on Thursday in closing arguments.

Police Officer Gilberto Valle, 28, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to kidnap, saying he had merely engaged in online fetish role play. His defense attorney would get a chance to address jury later on Thursday.

Valle is charged with improperly accessing a law enforcement database to gather personal information about purported targets, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison if he is convicted, and conspiracy to kidnap, which carries a sentence of 20 years to life.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hadassa Waxman acknowledged Valle was engaged in fantasy but that his intentions had grown more sinister.

"Officer Valle crossed the line. He left the world of fantasy and entered the world of reality," Waxman said in her 50-minute statement summarizing the prosecution evidence.

"He was serious. He was not just entertaining himself. He would have carried out the plan if he thought he could get away with it," Waxman said.

She pointed to his extensive online research on how to commit kidnapping, how to make chloroform, and how to cook women.

"None of this is fake. None of this is imagined. These are real searches conducted to carry out real research to kidnap real women," she said.

Valle, dubbed the "cannibal cop" by tabloid media, did not testify. Defense attorneys scrapped a plan to call a psychiatrist to testify that he suffered from a disorder in which he derives sexual pleasure from others' suffering.

The trial has brought to light a shadowy region of cyberspace where millions of people discuss and exchange images and video of extraordinary brutality, much of it staged.

On Tuesday, defense attorneys took jurors on a video tour of DarkFetishNet.com, a website at the heart of Valle's case.

The website functions like mainstream social media networks and its creator, Russian web entrepreneur Sergay Merenkov, likened it to Facebook. However, instead of family photos and cat videos, members share photos and videos of extreme human cruelty - including rape, asphyxiation and beheading - with the goal of sexual stimulation.

Members dream up brutally violent scripts, said Merenkov, who has kicked members off the site when "let's say that it seemed not to be fantasy anymore."

Prosecutors said Valle revealed himself to be such a person when he began taking steps to act on his fantasies.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Alden Bentley and Bernadette Baum)

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New York "cannibal cop" in tears as defense rests after one day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For more than a week, jurors in the federal kidnapping conspiracy trial of so-called New York "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle have been exposed to talk, imagery and video detailing extraordinary brutality against women.

On Tuesday, defense attorneys are set to begin presenting their case but jurors will not get a chance to hear from Valle himself, according to Stephanie Cirkovich, spokeswoman for the District Court in Manhattan.

"I just learned that defendant Valle is not testifying," Cirkovich said in a statement.

The grim-faced panel - six men and six women - have listened intently as witnesses read excerpts aloud from dozens of Web chats and emails in which Valle talked with others in graphic, often gleeful detail about raping, murdering, cooking and eating women.

Those women included his own now-estranged wife, Kathleen Mangan-Valle, whose tearful testimony against him last week was the emotional crescendo of the prosecution's case.

On Monday, before resting their case, prosecutors played a video allegedly found on Valle's computer in which a chained woman shrieks as she appears to be burning alive, according to local media reports.

An FBI computer forensics expert testified that the video appears to be staged using an actress.

Dubbed the "cannibal cop" by local media, Valle has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to kidnap. If convicted, he faces 20 years to life.

Defense attorneys contend that Valle was a member of an Internet subculture where people gather online to act out violent sexual fantasies in cyberspace.

His cyber-plots were "pure fiction," defense attorney Julia Gatto told jurors last week, no more dangerous than a Stephen King novel or a horror movie.

On Tuesday morning, jurors will hear from a Russian man who runs the fantasy role-play website where Valle's plots were hatched, Gatto said.

Also expected to testify as a defense witness is forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who interviewed serial killer cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

Valle's secret online life began to unravel last year after his now-estranged wife said he began acting oddly and spending much of his time on the couple's computer.

In tearful testimony last week, Kathleen Mangan-Valle said she discovered dozens of files her husband kept on their computer about women he said online he wanted to kidnap, torture and murder.

Among those was a file on Mangan-Valle herself and a number of her friends and work colleagues. She contacted the FBI and Valle was arrested in October.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall Jackson has charged that after months of online role play last year, Valle began to act on his fantasies when he met one of his online "targets" for brunch and improperly accessed a law enforcement database to get personal information on another.

Prosecutors have said that out of two dozen online plots to kidnap women, at least three were real.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Maureen Bavdek)

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