'Cannibal cop' found guilty of conspiracy after plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women including his own WIFE

• Gilberto Valle arrested last year after FBI got tips from now estranged wife
• The 28-year-old plotted with others he met on fetish websites to abduct, torture and eat women he knew, including his wife

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 15:41 GMT, 12 March 2013 | UPDATED: 18:05 GMT, 12 March 2013

A police officer accused of plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women, including his own wife, has been convicted of conspiracy.

The jury reached the verdict on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. The FBI arrested 28-year-old NYPD officer Gilberto Valle last year based on a tip by his now-estranged wife Kathleen Mangan. 

Prosecutors said 'cannibal cop' Valle plotted with others he met on fetish websites to abduct, torture and eat women he knew.

Valle's lawyers said he was just fantasizing and had no intention of harming anyone.

He also was found guilty of accessing a national crime database.

New York City's accused 'cannibal cop' crossed the line from fantasy to reality in plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women, a federal prosecutor told a jury in closing arguments last Thursday.

Defense attorney Julia Gatto countered in summations that her client was playing a fantasy role online, and told jurors 'we don't convict human beings because of ugly thoughts ... even if they are police officers'.

In a case featuring grisly testimony, NYPD worker Gilberto Valle, 28, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to kidnap and a charge of improperly accessing a law enforcement database to gather personal information about potential targets.

The jury of six women and six men deliberated for several hours after closing arguments without reaching a verdict. They resumed deliberations on Friday morning at the District Court in Manhattan.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hadassa Waxman said in her closing argument that Valle was at one point engaged in fantasy, but that his intentions had grown more sinister.

Pointing to his extensive online research on kidnapping, making chloroform and cooking women, she said: 'These are real searches conducted to carry out real research to kidnap real women.'

'This case is not about freedom of speech, or freedom of thought,' Waxman told jurors. Fetish websites 'are not on trial here. This is about Gilberto Valle's plans to hurt young women'.

FULL STORY + VIDEO - PICS: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292191/Gilberto-Valle-Cann...