The NYPD officer convicted in 2013 of conspiracy to kidnap to fulfill an online sexual fantasy about slow-cooking women to death and eating them, and of illegal use of federal databases to target and stalk his intended victims, has been released. A judge overturned the conviction Tuesday. Prosecutors plans to appeal the decision.
New York’s now-infamous “cannibal cop” isn’t actually a cannibal, because he never got as far as eating another human. Still, a jury found him guilty of conspiring to kidnap, kill, cook and eat women. At what point does online role play in the realm of violent fetishism become grounds for criminal charges?
On March 12, 2013, NYPD Officer Gilberto Valle, 28, was convicted by a jury of his peers on charges of conspiring to kidnap, kill, cook and eat women, and not necessarily in that order. During the trial his lawyer argued that Valle’s cannibalism fetish was an online fantasy, and no more.
New York City Police Officer Gilberto Valle, 28, a six-year veteran of the force, was arrested yesterday, and charged with conspiracy to kidnap, which hardly describes the extent of what he seems to have been up to. According to the criminal complaint, he was planning to kidnap women in order to rape, torture, kill, cook and cannibalize them — not necessarily in that order.