To Protect and Serve….with a Nice Side Dish

In my ongoing search for incidents of depravity perpetrated by people that we share the planet with, I happened upon New York police officer Gilberto Valle. It seems that on Wednesday October 24^th, 2012 agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation took Officer Gilberto Valle III into custody after they uncovered several plots to kidnap, rape, cook and eat women, yes EAT WOMEN!!! The Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara filed the official criminal complaint charging Valle, a six year veteran of the force with kidnapping, conspiracy and illegal use of a federal law enforcement database. It is said that Valle utilized NYPD surveillance equipment to keep tabs on his would be victims. In one of the most disturbing and unusual arrests involving a police officer, federal investigators discovered files on Valle’s computer pertaining to at least 100 women, according a law enforcement official, some of them were his classmates from high school.

The officer’s estranged wife initially contacted the F.B.I. to report that Valle viewed and kept disturbing items on his computer and feared for the safety of their 1 year old daughter.  On his computer Valle was found to have created a document named,”A Blueprint for Abducting and Cooking.”  The document contained women’s name, birth date and physical details like height, weight and bra size. The evidence against the officer consists largely of e-mails and instant messages in which Officer Valle was “discussing plans to kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook and eat body parts of a number of women,” according to the complaint. In each case, it appears that the women knew the officer vaguely. And in at least one case, the officer used the National Crime Information Center to get information about a third woman.  

On July 19, Officer Valle sent an instant message to the co-conspirator, indicating that he was meeting with “victim-1” three days later, according to the complaint. The victim, who was interviewed in October by the F.B.I., said she had met the officer that day “at a restaurant for lunch,” according to the complaint. What happened during or after the lunch was not disclosed. The U.S. Attorney says federal investigators found evidence of how closely Mr. Valle may have watched intended victims–cellphone data revealed the cop made and received calls while very close to a second target’s Manhattan apartment. Investigators say interviews with “victim 2″ revealed that she’d never had Mr. Valle over to her place and didn’t know him very well. Also found on Valle’s computer were conversations between he and at least 2 co-conspirators as the planned their acts.  Court documents contained a chilling transcript of an online exchange regarding the second would-be victim. Below are actual recordings of Valle and other unnamed would be accomplices taken from chat sessions held in July 2012:

CC-1 (Co-Conspirator 1), Mr. Valle and his associate allegedly discussed the best ways to kidnap, cook and eat an unnamed victim.

CC-2 (Co-Conspirator 2): I definitely want her and how much again, I’m sorry to ask but I don’t remember.

VALLE: $5,000 and she is all yours.

CC-2: Could we do 4?

VALLE: I am putting my neck on the line here. If something goes wrong somehow, I am in deep shit. $ 5,000 and you need to make sure she is not found. She will definitely make the news.

 In other on-line transmissions contained within the criminal complaint, Mr. Valle agreed with another co-conspirator to kidnap a different woman whom he would deliver bound, gagged and alive. Officer Valle offered to kidnap a woman on an unnamed person’s behalf for a price: “$5,000 and she is all yours,” the officer wrote to that person, according to the complaint. Officer Valle appeared to be under the impression that the person he was communicating with intended to rape the woman, according to the complaint. “She will be alive,” he wrote. “I think I would rather not get involved in the rape. You paid for her. She is all yours; I don’t want to be tempted the next time I abduct a girl.” Valle continued, “I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus,” he wrote to the co-conspirator in one electronic communication recovered by law enforcement authorities. “Cook her over a low heat; keep her alive as long as possible.” When the co-conspirator asked how big the officer’s oven was, Officer Valle replied, “Big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs.” While the complaint does not identify any of the women in question, F.B.I. agents later learned that cellphone tracking devices indicated that Officer Valle had made or received calls in the areas where the women lived.

Held without bail on charges of federal kidnapping conspiracy by the order of Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman; officer Valle’s trial began in February in the courtroom of Judge Paul Gardephe .  Valle's wife Kathleen Mangan took the stand, breaking down in sobs as she described discovering her husband's plot kill her: “I was supposed to be tied by my feet, my throat slit, and they were going to watch the blood rush from my body,” she said. During the trial, the three initial victims, who prosecutors say were Valle's "intended targets," testified as did an FBI agent who read excerpts of Valle's sick web chats in which he described plans to kidnap and barbecue the women who spoke in court.

As the prosecution and defense battled back and forth, the focus of testimony was reality vs. fantasy. An FBI agent took the stand recounting reams of Valle's sick web chats with fellow fetishists - admitting that those his agency considered "serious" sounded very similar to those considered "fantasy." Defense attorney Julia Gatto did not deny the evidence against Valle but chose to refer to his comments as "weird proclivities." Gatto and fellow defense attorney Robert Baum insisted that Valle was just fantasizing and noted that none of the women were ever harmed.

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. 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 near Halloween last year interrupted a ghoulish plan to "kidnap, torture, rape and commit other horrific acts on young women."

After 2+ days of deliberation, the jury found officer Gilberto Valle III, guilty of conspiring to kidnap and eat women as well as guilty of wrongfully accessing a federal database. Using words such as solid and damning in reference to the evidence they were presented, the jury’s decision was unanimous. Sentencing is scheduled for June 19^th and the former NYPD officer faces a potential life sentence. Many people sentenced to prison write books. I wonder if he plans to share any of his tightly held recipes in a cookbook.