By Sarina Trangle
Prosecutors want another
go-around with a former Forest Hills police officer, known as the “Cannibal
Cop,” who got a judge to toss out his prior conviction on conspiring to kidnap,
kill and eat women.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge
Paul Gardephe sentenced Gilberto Valle last week to the year behind bars he
served during his case and a year of supervised release, during which he must
continue mental health treatment, avoid contact with women prosecutors
described as targets, stay off any sexual fetish websites and forums and
consent to the government using a computer monitor to ensure compliance, according
to court documents.
Hours after the judge handed
down the sentence, federal prosecutors filed an appeal asking that the jury’s
initial conviction of conspiracy to commit kidnapping stand.
A jury found Valle guilty in
March 2013 of superseding his authorized access while searching a Federal
Bureau of Investigation database for details about women and of conspiring to
commit kidnapping.
But this summer, Gardephe
granted a request made by Valle’s attorney and overturned the conspiracy
conviction while authorizing a new trial on that count.
The FBI began investigating the
30-year-old Forest Hills resident after his wife said she found graphic
pornography on his computer and detailed plans to kidnap and torture women.
Agents then found chats and
e-mails Valle exchanged with alleged co-conspirators, extensive files on at
least five women who prosecutors said he planned to abduct and Internet
searches for rope and chloroform.
The cop worked for the NYPD for
six years prior to his arrest in 2012.
Gardephe concluded that
prosecutors’ use of exchanges between Valle and three alleged co-conspirators
in New Jersey, England and India or Pakistan on the sexual fantasy website Dark
Fetish Network did not illustrate any concrete steps taken by Valle to plot
kidnappings.
“This is a conspiracy that
existed solely in cyberspace,” Gardephe wrote in his opinion. “Dates for
‘planned’ kidnappings pass without comment, without discussion, without
explanation and with no follow-up. The only plausible explanation for the lack
of comment or inquiry about allegedly agreed-upon and scheduled kidnappings is
that Valle and the others engaged in these chats understood that no kidnappings
would actually take place.”
In their appeal, prosecutors
argued Valle actively worked towards the kidnappings by gathering information
about where targets lived and worked, offering to mail two of them PBA cards in
a bid to earn their trust, meeting one woman for lunch and researching how to
incapacitate victims with chloroform.
They contended that Gardephe
wanted the government to explain Valle’s communications above and beyond how
such communications are typically handled in court, and that an FBI agent had
described how the agency determined which of Valle’s exchanges were fantasy and
which were not.
“Far from being irrational, the
jury’s verdict was well-supported by the record of Valle’s communications,
preparations and post-arrest statements, which demonstrated a genuine intent to
kidnap,” the appeal read. “Judge Gardephe disagreed.”
Valle’s attorney did not
respond to requests for comment.
