A jury had concluded that 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.
However, Judge Paul Gardephe disagreed, and ruled late Monday that there was insufficient evidence to support the Valle’s conviction, defense attorney Julia Gatto said Tuesday.
“The judge’s well-reasoned decision validates what we have said since the beginning: There was no crime,” she said. “Gil Valle is innocent of any conspiracy. Gil is guilty of nothing more than having unconventional thoughts.”
In his 118-page opinion, first reported by The New York Times, Gardephe said: “The evidentiary record is such that it is more likely than not the case that all of Valle’s Internet communications about kidnapping are fantasy role-play.”