United States v. Valle

United States v. Valle
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Decided	December 3, 2015
Citation	807 F.3d 508, 40 Int'l Env't Rep. (BNA) 1735
Case history
Appealed from	Southern District of New York
Court membership
Judges sitting	Chester J. Straub, Barrington D. Parker Jr., Susan L. Carney
Case opinions
Majority	Parker, joined by Carney
Dissent	Straub

United States v. Valle was a criminal case in the Southern District of New York concerning Gilberto Valle, a New York City Police Department officer who had discussed on online fetish chatrooms his fantasies about kidnapping, torturing, raping, killing, and cannibalizing various women he knew, and had used a police database to find the addresses of some. Dubbed the "Cannibal Cop" by the media, Valle was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and, for the use of the police database, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The presiding judge, however, acquitted Valle on the conspiracy charges notwithstanding the verdict, ruling that the prosecution had not proven that Valle's online communications went beyond "fantasy role-play". On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the judge's judgment of acquittal and further ruled Valle's misuse of the police database did not constitute a violation of the CFAA, thus acquitting him of the lesser charge.

The case drew widespread attention for its unusual nature and for the question it posed of at what point exploration of dark fetishes becomes criminal conspiracy.^[1] Valle spent 21 months in prison between his arrest and the conclusion of his trial, seven of them in solitary confinement.^[2] The case was later the subject of the documentary Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop.