On Thursday March 7 a prosecutor argued that the FBI had to arrest a man last October because he was planning to cannibalize women.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hadassa Waxman told a New York jury that 28-year-old police officer Gilberto Valle planned to "kidnap, torture, rape and commit other horrific acts" upon at least six women, including his own wife.
The defense, however, claims that the allegations are baseless and derive from harmless indulgence fueled by fetish websites. Valle's lawyer Julia Gatto called the purported scheme, "no more real than an alien invasion."
Valle was arrested in October after his wife found chats on his computer, which she turned over to the FBI. If convicted, Valle may face life in prison.
The prosecution argues that Valle took concrete steps toward executing his plan, such as trolling for potential victims on a secured law enforcement database. He was also said to have searched the Internet for methods of knocking someone out with chloroform and appearing on a woman's block after saying he would kidnap her for the price of $5,000.
"Officer Valle crossed the line," Waxman said in a summary of the prosecution's evidence. "He left the world of fantasy and entered the world of reality. He was serious. He was not just entertaining himself. He would have carried out the plan if he thought he could get away with it."
On Tuesday, jurors were shown a video of DarkFetishNet.com, the main website that Valle visited. Created by Russian Web entrepreneur Sergay Merenkov, the site allows users to post photos and videos of humans in cruel situations that are meant to be sexually stimulating.
Gatto, however, remains firm in arguing that such indulgence was just fantasy.
"I just have a world in my mind and in that world I am kidnapping women and selling them to people interested in buying them," Valle wrote in an email presented by Gatto.
Valle has been dubbed the "Cannibal Cop" because of the allegations.
