Defense: NYPD Cop a Cannibal Only in Online Fantasy

NYPD Officer Gilberto Valle's mind is full of sick thoughts — and he wants a jury to know it.


The site claims more than 38,000 members and cautions that it "is for all fantasies, not real death." A 38-year-old member from the United States says in his profile that he enjoys "the thought of torturing girls in the most horrific ways. I've been a freak since my early teens and I don't see this changing."

During jury selection, the defense quizzed candidates on whether they have a bias against people who frequent websites depicting sadomasochistic behavior.

At trial's end, Valle's fate will rest with a jury of six men and six women, most of whom are college-educated and have lived in Manhattan or New York's suburbs most of their lives. One collects antiques. Two are amateur musicians.

A 50-year-old woman on the jury wrote of her film preferences: "Without my husband, horror movies; with my husband, everything else."

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Associated Press Writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.

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