NYPD officer Gilberto Valle found guilty of all charges in cannibalism plot
Valle faces life in prison after jury fails to buy defence argument that his plot to kidnap and cook women alive was a fantasy
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The jury deliberated for just over two days before finding Gilberto Valle guilty. Photograph: Jane Rosenburg/Reuters
A New York City police officer has been convicted of plotting to kidnap and cook women alive, bringing to an end a macabre case that raised difficult questions about where the law draws the line between fantasy and reality.
The federal jury found Gilberto Valle, a 28-year-old father with an admitted fetish for discussing cannibalism on the internet, guilty on all counts. He now faces life in prison.
Valle's lawyers chose not to hide what they called his "weird proclivities". But they insisted that he was just fantasizing and noted that none of the women were ever harmed.
Valle slumped his head, as did the entire defense team, when the verdict was announced. He later hugged a lawyer, Julia Gatto.
His mother, Elizabeth, shook her head. "I'm in shock and want to be left alone," she said after her son was led away.
Prosecutors countered that an analysis of Valle's computer found he was taking concrete steps to abduct his wife and at least five other women he knew. They said he looked up potential targets on a restricted law enforcement database, searched the internet for how to knock someone out with chloroform, and showed up on the block of one woman after agreeing to kidnap her for $5,000 for a New Jersey man, now awaiting trial.
Valle "left the world of fantasy and entered the world of reality", prosecutor Hadassa Waxman said during closing arguments. She said the officer's arrest last year interrupted a ghoulish plan to "kidnap, torture, rape and commit other horrific acts on young women".
The jury, which deliberated for just over two days, heard Valle's potential victims testify that they were trading innocent-sounding emails and texts with him, unaware he was supposedly scheming to make meals out of them. The government also sought to drive home the point that Valle was more of a threat because he was a police officer.
The trial opened a window on strange online underworld where people share lurid fantasies of torture, murder, dismemberment and
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