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cannibal cop complete coverage

A federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday released so-called "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle and reversed his controversial 2013 conviction for conspiring to kidnap and eat women, but prosecutors said they would appeal the decision exonerating the former NYPD officer. 
In a 118-page ruling issued 15 months after a jury found him guilty, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe said there was insufficient evidence to uphold the verdict because Valle's actions were limited to Internet fantasy chats with men he never knew about torturing and killing his wife and other women he knew. 
"The nearly year long conspiracy alleged by the government was one in which no one was kidnapped, no attempted kidnapping ever took place and no real world non-Internet-based steps were ever taken to kidnap anyone," Gardephe wrote. 
At a court hearing to announce the ruling Tuesday, Valle -- who had been jailed for 21 months -- hugged his attorneys and waved to family members. He left the Manhattan federal lockup walking hand in hand with his mother just before 2 p.m., and apologized to "everyone who's been hurt by my actions." 
"I'm tired," said Valle, who lost his wife, his job and custody of his baby daughter as a result of the case. "I want to go home and spend time with my family." 
His defense team portrayed the ruling as a victory for core freedoms. "This case is about bedrock values," Gatto said. "In America, we do have freedom of thought. The government cannot be in charge of our thoughts." 
But prosecutors said they still believed Valle was guilty, and persuaded Gardephe to order $100,000 bail, home detention at a relative's house in Queens and a mental health assessment after unsuccessfully urging the judge to keep Valle locked up as a flight risk and danger to the community. 
"The government certainly respects the court's decision, but we believe the jury got it right," prosecutor Hadassa Waxman said. 
Valle, 30, a six-year NYPD officer, was charged in 2012 when his wife contacted the FBI after discovering visits via his laptop to a kinky "dark fetish" website and chats with like-minded voyeurs about abusing women. He maintained it was all role-playing and never serious. 
He also was charged with misusing an NYPD database to research some of the women -- who included a former college friend and a high school student. Gardephe upheld his conviction on that charge Tuesday, but it carries a maximum sentence of only a year in prison. 
At trial last year, defense lawyers noted that Valle had engaged in dozens of kinky Internet chats the government conceded were fantasies, and that in the ones deemed serious he lied about his identity, never gave women's true identities, never met his alleged co-conspirators, lied about having various tools to use in the plots and let alleged target dates for kidnappings pass without notice. 
Gardephe jailed Valle before trial and let the case go to the jury, but in Tuesday's ruling he echoed most of the defense objections, finding that Valle did no more than engage in "deeply misogynistic chats." 
"The presence and quantity of concededly fictitious and fantastical elements in the chats and emails . . . precludes any reasonable inference that Valle actually intended to kidnap a woman," he wrote. 
Gardephe also criticized prosecutors for improperly emphasizing Valle's deviant sexual tastes and status as a police officer in their summations.

NYVALL02

'Cannibal cop' Gilberto Valle's conviction overturned

nyVALL02 cropped

Convicted "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle is asking for a new trial in court papers that accuse prosecutors of using junk science and improper appeals to create fear during their closing arguments in March.
Former NYPD officer Valle, 29, of Queens, was convicted in federal court in Manhattan of plotting to kidnap and eat women in chats on a kinky-sex website. He claimed that all the chats were role-playing fantasies that weren't serious.
In an unusually vivid summation, prosecutor Randall Jackson told jurors that Valle's fantasies were "not OK," and asked if they would dine with a chef who fantasized about poisoning food, or be comfortable on a plane where passengers fantasized about a hijacking.
In their motion for a new trial filed late Monday, Valle's lawyers said those arguments were designed to encourage the jury to convict Valle based on speculative fear of what he might do instead of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jackson also told jurors that "common sense" dictates that people intend to carry out their fantasies, and that sadistic fantasies were not "normal." But a psychiatrist, in an affidavit, said Jackson completely misstated the known science on the role and prevalence of sadistic fantasies.
The arguments, the motion said, played on jurors' "very human fear that, if they didn't convict Valle now, someone with such a deviant imagination could potentially harm someone in the future."
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office had no comment. U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe has not set a date for Valle's sentencing, or for a hearing on the new trial motion.

NYVALL19

'Cannibal cop' Gilberto Valle seeks a new trial

nyCOP

A federal jury in Manhattan Tuesday convicted accused "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle of conspiracy to kidnap and eat women, stunning Valle, his family and a defense team that relentlessly argued he had engaged only in crude, online role-playing fantasies.
Six-year NYPD veteran Valle, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, flinched, lurched forward and held his head when the guilty verdict was read. Later, he cried and hugged his attorney. His mother, Elizabeth -- her face soaked with rain and tears while leaving the courthouse -- said she was "shocked." 
"Why am I shocked?" she asked a reporter as she dodged cameras. "Did you attend that trial? That's why I'm shocked."
Valle was charged with plotting in Internet chats with three men he met on a kinky-sex website to abduct, abuse and cannibalize women he knew, including his wife, and with misusing a police database. Jailed since his arrest, he will face up to life in prison at his sentencing June 19. He was fired by the NYPD Tuesday.
The seven-day trial was a tightrope walk on the line between fantasy and reality.
Valle was never accused of hurting anyone, and prosecutors presented little proof of any action to execute the plots he chatted about. All the dates set online for kidnappings passed uneventfully, and even U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe said there was "almost no evidence of actions beyond computer-based activities."
Valle's defense attorneys and legal experts attributed the verdict to the flexibility of the conspiracy law -- which requires only an "agreement" to commit a crime and virtually no action -- and to the graphic descriptions of what he wanted to do to women that were found on Valle's computers.
"The case involved things that were unusual, and bizarre and very ugly," said defense attorney Julia Gatto. "The jury couldn't get past that. But we don't prosecute people for their thoughts."
James Cohen, a criminal-law professor at <a href="/topics//Fordham_University">Fordham University</a> Law School, said: "You need very little to get a conviction for conspiracy, and that's the danger of the conspiracy statute . . . The difference between a conspiracy and a fantasy may be like the difference between twilight and dusk."
Manhattan U.S. Attorney <a href="/topics//Preet_Bharara">Preet Bharara</a> noted in a release that Valle had researched methods of drugging women on the Internet, used a police database to look up his targets, and drew up a "blueprint" for abducting one woman.
<a href="/topics//Preet_Bharara">Bharara</a> said jurors concluded it was a "real" plot, and rejected criticisms that the case would chill Internet freedom. "The Internet is a forum for a free exchange of ideas," Bharara said, "but it does not confer immunity for plotting crimes and taking steps to carry out those crimes."
In an interview, juror William White, 44, of the Bronx said there was no dissension among jurors during the 13 hours of deliberations and it was "pretty clear to everyone" that Valle wasn't just fantasizing.
White said jurors were not influenced by the graphic nature of the images. "That was definitely overlooked," he said. "It was about going through all the facts and going through every detail presented and taking everything into consideration."
The defense plans an appeal, and before Valle is sentenced his attorneys will also have the chance to persuade the judge to overturn the verdict. In addition to the limited evidence of an agreement on a real plot, Cohen said, the defense is likely to bring up a freewheeling summation by prosecutor Randall Jackson.
Jackson asked jurors to ask themselves if they would take action if they overheard fellow passengers chatting about a hijacking, or would dine at a restaurant where they knew the chef fantasized about lacing food with cyanide. He also said the fact that jurors would be upset at the <a href="/topics//Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation">FBI</a> if they had ignored Valle and women were then killed "eliminates the possibility that we have reasonable doubt."
The defense, Cohen said, is likely to say those arguments were "improper in several respects."
With Denise M. Bonilla

NYVALL13

Gilberto Valle, accused 'cannibal cop,' found guilty

Jurors in the case of Gilberto Valle completed their first full day of deliberations Friday in federal court without reaching a verdict on charges that the NYPD officer conspired to kidnap and cannibalize women. 
 The jury began deliberating late on Thursday. 
 In notes Friday, jurors requested transcripts of the testimony of several witnesses, and instruction on what they should do if they found that no "overt act" in the alleged conspiracy occurred in the jurisdiction of the Manhattan court. 
 Valle, 28, was accused last year of plotting in online chats with three men to abduct and abuse women, and of misusing a police computer. He is not charged with hurting anyone, and claims that all the chats were fantasies. 
 The NYPD suspended him in December.

NYVALL09

'Cannibal cop' jury ends 1st day with no verdict

Accused "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle teared up in court Tuesday as defense attorneys played a video tour of the "dark fetish" website that got him in trouble and then rested their case after Valle told the judge he had decided not to testify.
"It started bringing the experience back to him," defense attorney Robert Baum said of Valle's emotional reaction. "It's the knowledge that we're finally coming to a conclusion and his fate is in the jury's hands. That's a huge weight for someone to bear."
Valle, 28, a six-year NYPD veteran, is charged with conspiring to kidnap, abuse and eat women in Internet chats with three men he met on the kinky "dark fetish" site, and with misusing a police database. He was turned in when his wife discovered his online activity, but is not accused of actually hurting anyone.
Defense attorneys say Valle was role-playing in the chats because it turned him on, and he never intended to execute any plots. He has been held in jail without bail since his arrest and was suspended by the NYPD in December. The trial started Feb. 25, and closing arguments are expected Thursday.
After six days of prosecution evidence, including detailed examinations of Valle's kidnap-themed chats and testimony from six women he allegedly targeted, the defense was expected to present testimony from a psychiatrist who diagnosed Valle with a sexual role-playing disorder called "paraphilia" and possibly from Valle himself.
But Baum said the defense concluded that the allegedly criminal chats were so riddled with fictional bluster that the jury didn't need to hear from Valle.
"There was no reason for him to testify other than to say 'I didn't do it, I didn't mean it,' and the jury already knew that," Baum said.
Earlier Tuesday, the defense played a videotaped deposition from Sergei Merenkov, webmaster of the Russian "dark fetish" website, who described the site as a <a href="/topics//Facebook">Facebook</a> for sexual fetishists.
Merenkov, 34, who spoke from Moscow through a translator, said his main job is marketing Spanish ice cream in Russia, but he founded the website in 2010 as a sideline. It has about 4,400 active users, 70 percent from the United States, and 25 percent of them women.
He said it was lightly monitored and he had no way of knowing whether users followed its "fantasy only" guidelines in the real world. "Rules are rules," Merenkov said. "There's always a chance people may not play by the rules."

NYVALL06

Alleged 'cannibal cop' won't testify at trial

The FBI agent who arrested accused "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle testified Friday that Valle said his sadistic obsessions had sent his life into a downward spiral and offered to help investigate the sex-fetish network he frequented.
Agent Anthony Foto also said that Valle insisted throughout a four-hour interrogation that the fantasies that he discussed in Internet chats about kidnapping, torturing and eating women he knew were not real plots.
"He claimed that he would not have gone through with it," Foto testified in federal court in Manhattan. "He said he did not enjoy it and he did not know why he was doing it."
Valle, 28, a six-year NYPD veteran, was charged last year with conspiring online with three other men to abduct and kill women, and misusing a police database. He is not accused of hurting anyone. His lawyers say role-playing turned him on.
Foto said Valle was "very calm" after his Oct. 24 arrest, revealing personal details -- his parents divorced when he was 5, and he got intrigued by cannibalism in college -- and describing the Russia-based "dark fetish" website where he met his chat partners.
He told Foto the site attracted a "small group" of users, the agent testified, and said he found it in 2010 while searching the word "bondage" on the Internet. "He said he would be willing to help the FBI in distinguishing which users were real and which were fantasy, and that it was hard to make that distinction," Foto said.
Valle also told the agent that two of the men he joined last year in chats the government alleges involved real plots -- a Pakistani called "Ali Khan" and a Brit screen-named "Moody Blues" -- were more "serious" than other users, Foto said, drawing him into late-night marathons.
"When he began to talk to them the activities began to build into his personal life," the agent said. "He was becoming exhausted, he began to pull away from his wife, and ultimately stopped having sex with her."
The interrogation was not video or audio taped, Valle was not asked for a written statement, and Foto did not take notes, the agent testified. After prosecutors spent 16 minutes having Foto describe the four-hour interview, they repeatedly objected to defense efforts to have Foto describe additional statements from Valle.
In one instance, defense lawyer Robert Baum began to ask Foto, "Did he tell you he wasn't himself . . . " before being cut off by an objection. 
U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe recessed the trial until Monday to research whether to allow that questioning, and to decide whether jurors can see grotesque pictures from Valle's computer. He said the trial will wrap up next week.

FBI agent: Gilberto Valle offered to help investigate sex-fetish network

A Manhattan federal judge Thursday dealt a potentially significant blow to the government's case against alleged "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle, refusing to approve testimony about <a href="/topics//Cellular_Phones">cellphone</a> data that prosecutors say would show he conducted "surveillance" of intended victims. 
 U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe also prohibited prosecutors from using several grisly images found on Valle's computers, and cleared defense testimony from the Russian webmaster of a sexual fetish website that Valle's behavior was consistent with that of other nonviolent users of the site. 
 Lawyers for Valle, 28, of Forest Hills, the NYPD cop accused of plotting with co-conspirators online to kidnap, abuse and eat women, said the rulings would help them keep jurors in the upcoming trial focused on defense claims that their client was fantasizing and role-playing but never intended to do anything. 
 "We feel the court is starting to see there is no real-world activity as regards the conspiracy to kidnap and the government's case is based on chats that live only in the world of the Internet," said public defender Julia Gatto. 
 When prosecutors made headlines last fall with the lurid charges, they said data from cell towers Valle's phone was using would show "surveillance" of some women he discussed in his chats by proving his presence on the blocks where they lived or worked on certain dates. 
 Since then, Gardephe said, the government has reviewed 3,500 of Valle's cell connections over a year to try to link him with targets, changed the alleged dates and targets it wants to present to the jury, and has backed off its claim that the data could narrow his location to a block -- now claiming only that he was in the "vicinity" of his alleged targets. 
 The judge said prosecutors haven't shown that the methodology they are using to analyze Valle's location is "sufficiently reliable to be able to be offered at trial." 
 Gardephe said he would give prosecutors one more chance, on the day the trial starts, to have an <a href="/topics//Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation">FBI</a> expert try to convince him the cell tower evidence is reliable. The trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 25. 
 The only evidence prosecutors have publicly disclosed of surveillance, other than the cell data, is a visit Valle paid with his wife to a woman in <a href="/topics//Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
 At Thursday's hearing, prosecutors also disclosed for the first time that one of Valle's alleged abduction targets was an 18-year-old student who played softball at Archbishop Molloy High School. They contend that cell data show he was in the vicinity of the school on a Saturday in May last year, and told Gardephe the softball team practiced on Saturdays.

Long Island

Crime

NYVALL15

Judge tosses graphic images in 'cannibal cop' case

Alleged cannibal cop Gilberto Valle's latest bid to get out on bail was quickly rejected by a panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday morning. 
 Lawyers for Valle, 28, who has been imprisoned since October on charges that he plotted on the Internet to abduct, rape and eat women, told a three-judge panel that all the evidence showed was that Valle was role-playing in a chat room for people with bizarre fantasies. 
 The government won't be able to prove the NYPD officer ever intended to take action on his fantasies, said federal defender Edward Zas. 
 "When the history of this case is written, what will be said is, 'How did everyone get it so wrong?' " Zas argued. ". . . He has done nothing but imagine very bad things and put them foolishly on the Internet in a very bad way." 
 But one of the panel members, Judge Chester Straub, reminded Zas that the government alleged that Valle also had surveilled two targets. Prosecutor Hadassah Waxman told the judges that Valle's own wife took him seriously enough that she tipped off cops and moved out with their child. 
 Waxman also revealed that after having lunch with one of his targets, a former classmate at the <a href="/topics//University_of_Maryland-College_Park">University of Maryland</a>, Valle wrote in a chat forum that his "mouth was watering the whole time." The prosecutor called his musings "depraved, disgusting, troubling and gruesome." 
 A magistrate and two judges in federal court in Manhattan had ruled that Valle should be held without bail as a flight risk and a danger to the community. The circuit judges turned down his appeal before even leaving the bench Tuesday. 
 Valle had been seeking a quick trial because he is imprisoned. But in a hearing Tuesday afternoon, after his appeal was turned down, his lawyers told U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe that they couldn't be ready by Jan. 22 as scheduled, and the judge postponed the start of trial to Feb. 25.

NYCOP16

Alleged 'cannibal cop' Gilberto Valle denied bail

A <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> man was arrested Friday on charges that he sought to pay $5,000 to a <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> City police officer -- later charged in a cannibalism case -- to kidnap a Manhattan woman that he intended to rape and kill.
Michael Vanhise, 22, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. He was arrested at his Trenton home, accused of agreeing to pay Gilberto Valle for the abduction last year when Valle was an active police officer.
Federal prosecutors and the <a href="/topics//Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation">FBI</a> said Valle was supposed to kidnap the woman in New York and bring her to Vanhise's home in New Jersey, where she would be raped and killed. They said Vanhise also participated in planning the kidnapping of a girl.
Vanhise also admitted emailing others about kidnapping, raping and killing women and children, the FBI said in court papers unsealed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Vanhise's lawyer did not immediately return a call for comment.
Valle was charged last year with using a law-enforcement database as he allegedly made plans to kidnap, rape, kill and eat women. The officer's lawyer said he was engaging in sexual fantasies and intended no violence. 
U.S. Attorney <a href="/topics//Preet_Bharara">Preet Bharara</a> said Vanhise engaged in conduct "that reads like a script for a bad horror film." He said the arrest was the second "in this bone-chilling case, but we are not finished."
George Venizelos, head of the New York FBI office, said the charges "convey the depravity of the offense." According to court papers, Vanhise and Valle negotiated last February to carry out the kidnapping of the Manhattan woman, saying in email conversations that she would be knocked unconscious before her hands and feet were bound and she was gagged.
The men conspired to stuff her into a large suitcase and deliver her to Vanhise's home, where Valle insisted she would still be alive so that Vanhise could rape her, authorities said.
Vanhise was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Valle, 28, of Queens, was charged in October with one count of kidnapping conspiracy and one count of accessing a computer without authorization. He is awaiting trial.

NYCANN05

Second arrest in alleged cannibal cop case

cannibal cop indictment

Gilberto Valle criminal complaint

Gilberto Valle, the NYPD's so-called "cannibal cop" indicted in an alleged plot to kidnap and eat women, pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday, and his lawyer said he will be making a new bid to get out on bail.
U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe scheduled a hearing for Tuesday afternoon on the bail application, but warned Valle's attorney Julia Gatto, "You'll have a hard row to hoe."
Two previous judges ruled that Valle was too dangerous to release, and one of the women he allegedly discussed targeting has said she is fearful of Valle getting out. Prosecutor Hadassa Waxman said that victim's attorney will be in court to oppose release again.
Valle, a six-year NYPD veteran from Forest Hills, was arrested last month after his estranged wife tipped authorities to what investigators described as bizarre materials on his computer. He allegedly had pictures of 100 women on his computer, and had discussed kidnappings with co-conspirators who have not been identified.
The defense has argued that Valle was just fantasizing, and never actually agreed or planned to carry out a kidnapping. He has been charged with a kidnapping conspiracy and with illegally using a law enforcement database to research his plot.

NYCANN20

Accused 'cannibal cop' Gilberto Valle pleads not guilty

An NYPD officer faces federal kidnapping conspiracy charges in a plot to abduct, cook and "eat body parts" of at least two women, court records show. 
 The officer, identified in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court as Gilberto Valle, 28, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his home in Forest Hills after emails and text messages show he plotted to "kidnap" one woman "right out of her home." 
 Court papers show he told a co-conspirator on July 9 that his oven is "big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs." 
 "I love that she is asleep right now not having the slightest clue of what we have planned," the papers say he wrote. "Her days are numbered. I'm glad you're on board. She does look tasty doesn't she?" 
 Valle, who police officials said worked as a patrol officer in the 26th Precinct in Harlem, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping and faces life in prison if convicted. He also was charged with intentionally and knowingly accessing a computer without authorization. Two suspected co-conspirators have not been named as defendants and live outside the United States. 
 Paul Browne, an NYPD spokesman, said Valle was suspended without pay upon his arrest. He said Valle was a six-year veteran of the force. Late Thursday, Valle was ordered by a federal magistrate to be detained pending trial. 
 "Gilberto Valle's alleged plans to kidnap women so that they could be raped, tortured, killed, cooked, and cannibalized shock the conscience," said <a href="/topics//Preet_Bharara">Preet Bharara</a>, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. 
 The bizarre case, dubbed that of the "cannibal cop," started when Valle's estranged wife found pornography and strange files in his computer and contacted the FBI when the couple separated, said a senior law enforcement official who didn't want to be named. 
 FBI agents and police internal affairs investigators several months ago seized Valle's personal computer and delved into its contents, the official said. Valle appeared to be a member of a "strange fetish chat room," the official said. 
 News of the charges stunned Valle's friends, one of whom said he played baseball at Archbishop Molloy High School with Valle when they won the city league championship in 2002. 
 "Me and some of the guys on the team met at the coach's office three months ago and he brought his girlfriend or wife and his baby girl. I remember it because he was the only one who brought a significant other," said one former teammate who didn't want to be named. 
 According to the complaint, Valle created files "pertaining to at least 100 women" -- and each contained "at least one photograph of each woman." 
 The FBI identified and interviewed 10 of the women, according to the complaint, and each "confirmed to the FBI that Valle is known to her." 
 Many of the 100 photographs appear to relate to women Valle didn't know personally, the official explained, adding that Valle was communicating with people outside the country. 
 As astonishing as the allegations are, another law enforcement official said that they had to be taken seriously because Valle had committed a number of acts that the court papers say would have needed to be completed to continue with the conspiracy. 
 The complaint claims that in February Valle offered to kidnap one victim and supply her to another unnamed co-conspirator for a fee of $5,000. 
 "It is going to be so hard to constrain myself when I knock her out, but I am aspiring to be a professional kidnapper and that's business," Valle wrote in a Feb. 28 online communication, according to the complaint. 
 With Ivan Pereira 
 and Robert Kessler

NYCOOK26

FBI: NYPD Officer Gilberto Valle charged in cannibal plot to kidnap, cook women

Gilberto Valle, accused 'cannibal cop': Complete coverage

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