NEW YORK (AP) — Defense lawyers say all Internet users
should worry that their online words can end up in federal court after a jury
concluded that a New York police officer's plans to kidnap, kill and eat young
women he knew were more than Internet chatter.
At the end of one of the most unusual federal trials ever, a
jury agreed Tuesday with the government that 28-year-old Gilberto Valle wasn't
just fantasizing when he conversed online with others he had never met about
killing and cooking his wife and others in a cannibalism plot.
"Yes, they should be cautioned," Valle defense
lawyer Robert Baum said outside court of people everywhere. "It sets a
dangerous precedent."
The larger principle at stake in the trial was that
"people can be prosecuted for their thoughts," Baum said, pausing
before adding: "And convicted, which is even sadder to think about."
Baum had just exited federal court in Manhattan, where Valle
and others at the defense table dropped their heads as the guilty verdicts were
announced by a jury that had deliberated for portions of four days.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement:
"Today, a unanimous jury found that Gilberto Valle's detailed and specific
plans to abduct women for the purpose of committing grotesque crimes were very
real and that he was guilty as charged. The Internet is a forum for the free
exchange of ideas, but it does not confer immunity for plotting crimes and
taking steps to carry out those crimes."
Marcellus McRae, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles
now in private practice, said it was a stretch by the defense to claim Valle
was prosecuted for his thoughts because the jurors were required to find that
he took one or more concrete steps to carry out the conspiracy.
"It's not just a thought crime. It's a thought-and-action
crime and conviction," he said.
Valle defense attorney Julia Gatto declined to talk about
the sentencing scheduled for June 19, saying the defense team was focused only
on trying to reverse the conviction on charges of kidnapping conspiracy and
illegally accessing a national crime database. She said she will appeal within
a month to U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe to throw out the jury verdict
or to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Although Valle could face up to
life in prison, he is likely to get a much lower sentence.
Gatto, who said she cried with Valle after the verdict was
announced, called it a "dangerous prosecution when we start opening our
minds and prosecuting what's in our brains and not what's in the real
world."
The jury, though, rejected the same "thought
prosecution" argument she made throughout the trial.
Jurors left the courthouse without comment. Most did not
immediately respond to emails and phone messages or declined to discuss the
case.
Valle's mother, Elizabeth, shook her head. "I'm in
shock and want to be left alone," she said.
Prosecutors said Valle plotted in lusty, lip-smacking detail
to abduct, torture and cannibalize six women he knew, including his wife. While
none of the women were ever harmed — and only his wife discovered his schemes —
prosecutors said he took concrete steps to carry out his plot.
They said the New York City police officer looked up
potential targets on a restricted law enforcement database; searched the
Internet for how to knock someone out with chloroform and where to get torture
devices and other tools; and showed up on a woman's block after striking an
agreement to kidnap her for $5,000 for a New Jersey man who wanted to rape and
kill her. That man was also arrested and is awaiting trial.
In one of the numerous online conversations shown to the
jury, Valle told a man he met in a fetish chat room, "I want her to
experience being cooked alive. She'll be trussed up like a turkey. ... She'll
be terrified, screaming and crying."
In another exchange, Valle suggested a woman he knew would
be easy prey because she lived alone. The men discussed cooking her, basted in
olive oil, over an open fire and using her severed head as a centerpiece for a
sit-down meal.
"I'm dying to eat some girl meat," Valle mused in
yet another exchange.
During the trial, Valle's wife tearfully testified that she
fled the couple's home with her baby and contacted the FBI after putting
Internet tracking software on his computer and discovering what he was up to.
Members of the jury recoiled upon seeing what appeared to be
mostly staged Internet images from a sexual fetish site Valle visited. The
images included photos of wide-eyed women with apples stuffed in their mouths
like roasted pigs and a video of a chained, naked woman screaming as flames
appeared to scorch her crotch.