The FBI has charged two local men in a plot to kidnap, torture and kill women.

FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos said today that the agency arrested two people who planned to kidnap and torture women.

The FBI charged Richard Meltz and Christopher Asch in the plot.

“Both of these defendants took affirmative steps to carry out the conspiracy to kidnap and torture women,” Venizelos said. “Their actions were not confined to talking about these ghoulish plans.”

He said the men had obtained a taser and chemicals to anesthetize their victims.

“They made detailed plans to use these instruments – plans that were foiled by the FBI’s intervention,” Venizelos said.

The case developed from another investigation against Gilberto Valle, a former NYPD cop accused of trying to kidnap, kill and eat women, according to The New York Times.

Prosecutors say that the Meltz and Asch conspired from 2011 and 2013 and met an undercover FBI agent in March.

They discussed killing a specific woman over the phone, prosecutors said, and Asch traveled to Allentown, Pa., to get a taser at a gun show.

They spoke about “snuffing” women, children and babies, according to court documents.

Agents released email excerpts where Asch allegedly spoke to a co-conspirator about how to rape and kill his wife.

“You’d need to have an alibi, like being at work,” Asch said, according to the complaint. “Have you thought it through and will you feel any guilt if she disappears?”

The co-conspirator suggested Meltz could break in posing as a repair person and “choke her out.”

They also said Asch had a number of items he thought were necessary for a kidnapping: a ski mask, hypodermic needles, handcuffs and leather ties.

Asch is a former librarian at Stuyvesant High School who was previously arrested and later exonerated for inappropriately touching male students, according to the Daily News.

Meltz is the chief of police at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Massachusetts.

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A former New York City police officer plotted to kidnap, kill and cook women, a jury decided Tuesday.

After 16 hours of deliberation, a jury reached the verdict that Gilberto Valle, 28, was guilty on all charges.

Prosecutors charged that Valle plotted to kidnap women, keeping files on more than 100, and conspired to eventually kill and cook them.

His defense lawyer portrayed his actions as harmless sexual fantasies, telling jurors he should not be convicted for his thoughts.

Evidence included online communications in which prosecutors said he plotted to cook women, judging whether his oven could fit one if he folded her legs. He also agreed to a payment of $5,000 to deliver a woman bound, gagged and alive, prosecutors said.

His wife, who was among his planned victims, prosecutors said, testified against him at trial. He cried during her testimony.

Valle, a Forest Hills resident who had patrolled in Harlem, faces life in prison.

Former Brooklyn prosecutor and attorney Michael Weinstock said the “game changer” in the case was Valle illegally using a crime database to find information on potential victims, which was itself a crime and showed taking an action past chats.

“He’s not just going onto a website with weirdos and talking about killing his wife,” Weinstock said. “That would be weird, and that would be disturbing, but that alone would not have gotten the guy convicted.”

In his opinion, he continued, “If he had simply said twisted things with other peculiar nerds online, it never would have been prosecuted, but once he opened the database, it was a game changer.”

But he said he did not think this case would set a precedent for others involving conspiracy to commit crimes, simply because prosecutors do not have the resources to patrol every sexual fantasy.

“They’ve got their hands full,” he said.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that the case showed that the web cannot be used for planning crimes.

“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,” Bharara said. “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.”

Prosecutors’ allegations

Planned to abduct and cook 100 women
Negotiated price of $5,000 to deliver a woman bound, gagged and alive
Used the National Crime Information Center to find potential victims
Kept files including a document entitled, “Abducting and Cooking [Victim-1]: a Blueprint,” with name, birthday, height, weight and bra size

Excerpts from the alleged planning

“[My oven] is big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs.”

“I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus … cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible.”

“I love that she is asleep right now not having the slightest clue of what we have planned. Her days are numbered.”

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The jury did not yet reach a verdict for the former police officer accused of plotting to kidnap, kill and cook women.

The jury in the trial of Gilberto Valle did not reach a verdict and will resume deliberations Monday, according to the Daily News.

Valle is accused of conspiring to kidnap women who prosecutors say he plotted online to kill and eventually cook. His defense has portrayed the online communications as sexual fantasies that were not criminal.

He did not testify and broke down in tears this week in court.

Valle’s wife testified against him, and women he is accused of plotting crimes against also testified during the trial.

He allegedly kept files on more than 100 women and illegally used a database to find their information.

The defense rested its case Tuesday, and closing arguments were Thursday.

He faces life in prison if convicted of the charges.

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Gilberto Valle is on trial for allegedly plotting to kidnap, kill and eat women. (Facebook)

The former cop who is on trial for allegedly plotting to kidnap, kill and eat women was in tears on Tuesday after the defense rested its case after one day. Gilberto Valle also refused to testify in his own defense, The New York Times reported.

Prosecutors presented to jurors last week a series of Internet chats, emails and graphic images pulled from Valle’s computer revealing his plans to kidnap women, torture them and eat them. The women included his own estranged wife, Kathleen Mangan Valle, and old college friends, who took the stand last week.

The defense attorneys have stated that there is not enough evidence that Valle intended to carry out any of these plans and that he was merely fantasizing. They presented Tuesday a videotaped testimony from an operator of one of the websites Valle used. Sergey Merenkov explained that he created the site for people with all types of fetishes, and thousands of users visit the site each week.

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Thursday. Valle faces life in prison if he is convicted.

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The final presentation from prosecutors to jurors in the “cannibal cop” case included an apparently staged video of a screaming woman chained and gagged over an open flame and other graphic images from websites that former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle visited.

The laptop that Valle’s wife handed over to police after she left her husband in September also revealed the types of search terms Valle entered on the Internet: “how to cook a human,” “human meat recipes,” “how to abduct a girl” and “how to chloroform a girl,” the New York Post reported.

Valle, a 28-year-old former cop from Queens, is accused of plotting to kidnap, torture, kill and eat women.

The defense team is prepared to make its case Tuesday as they try to prove that Valle never intended to carry out his plans. They are expected to present a videotaped deposition of a Russian operator of one of the websites Valle used who says he created the website to serve as a social network for people with kinky fantasies, and that users include both men and women who often engage in role play online.

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Two British men have been arrested in connection with the “cannibal cop” trial, including the man who allegedly served as Gilberto Valle’s online mentor on cannibalism.

A man who has been known in the trial as “Moody Blues” was identified on Friday as 57-year-old Dale Bolinger of Canterbury, according to NBC News. He is now free on bail after he was detained on suspicion of conspiracy, child grooming and possession of child abuse images. Another man from Canterbury, 30, was also arrested and is free on bail.

Former NYPD officer Valle is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape, torture, kill and eat women. Email exchanges between “Moody Blues” and Valle were among many Internet conversations read in court this week that detail the accused cop’s gruesome plans.

Bolinger communicated with Valle about the cop’s plans to kill and eat an old college friend. He also suggested Valle eat his victims alive, but Valle responded that he isn’t really into “raw meat.”

Valle faces life in prison if convicted. He has said that he was only fantasizing and never intended to carry out his plans.

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Gilberto Valle, a former city cop who is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape, kill and eat women, communicated with a butcher in India about his plans to kill and cook his wife and longtime friend, an FBI agent testified on Wednesday.

The butcher, identified as Aly Khan, allegedly offered Valle a place in Pakistan to kill his soon-to-be wife, said Agent Corey Walsh, according to the New York Post.

In Internet chats between Valle and Khan from early last year, the accused cop talked about how he could talk his wife into going on a trip to India. From there, the two men would take her to Pakistan, where they would drag her to a basement, hang her from her feet and sexually assault her before killing and cooking her.

They also talked about their plans for Valle’s college friend Andria Noble. Valle wrote that he wanted to dress her like a turkey and cook her alive.

Noble, 27, who attended the University of Maryland with Valle, testified on Monday that she never knew him to be violent.

Valle’s wife, Kathleen Mangan Valle, left her husband with their infant daughter last September when she discovered his grisly fetish.

The defense team has argued that the former officer was only fantasizing.

Valle, who also allegedly used government resources to research his victims, faces a life sentence if convicted.

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A new series of emails shows “cannibal cop” Gilberto Valle shared personal information with two co-conspirators about different women he knew in a plot to kill and eat them, including two friends from college.

On the second day of his trial, prosecutors displayed emails and instant messages that had detailed descriptions of what Valle wanted to do with these women, including a friend he’s known since 2002 when they attended the University of Maryland together, The Daily News reported.

The college friend, Kimberly Sauer, 29, testified on Tuesday. She said she considered Valle a friend and had no idea of his gruesome plans for her.

Valle exchanged emails with a co-conspirator known as “Moody Blues” about how he wanted to kill her and devour her.

“I’ll be eying her from head to toe and licking my lips, longing for the day I cram a chloroform-soaked rag in her face,” he wrote in an email some time before he had plans to meet Sauer for lunch, according to The Daily News.

Valle also targeted another college friend, Andria Noble, as well as his own wife Kathleen Mangan Valle and an 18-year-old college student named Kristen Ponticelli, who says she never met Valle.

Defense lawyer Julia Gatto said Valle never shared the last names of the women, indicating that his plans were part of a fantasy and not actual plans he was planning to carry out.

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Opening arguments were held today in the case of ‘cannibal cop’ Gilberto Valle, accused of plotting to kidnap, cook and eat women. Valle’s wife also gave testimony, in which she described discovering his fetish.

As expected, the defense argued that the charges are spurious, as Valle was simply fantasizing, and never intended to act on his fantasies, NBC New York reported.

“You can’t convict people for their thoughts, even if they’re sick,” defense attorney Julia Gatto reportedly said.

But prosecutors said Valle’s plans were targeting “very real women.”

Valle’s wife Kathleen Mangan gave an emotionally charged testimony today, sobbing uncontrollably when prosecutors displayed a photo of Valle with their baby girl, Josephine, according to reports from the NY Post.

Mangan said that Valle was initially “nice” and “he opened doors and pulled out chairs,” but changed when she became pregnant. When the baby was born less than a year ago, Valle emotionally checked out.

“It’s like he was gone,” she said.

Valle cried during his wife’s testimony, according to the NY Post.

Mangan told the FBI about Valle’s strange behavior when she started asking questions about where she liked to job, what the lighting was like, and whether other people were around, NBC New York reported.

Investigators had uncovered a file on Valle’s computer containing the names and pictures of at least 100 women, and the addresses and physical descriptions of some of them. He was also accused of spying on them at work and at their homes, and negotiating a price to kidnap a woman, insisting on no less than $5,000 to deliver a woman bound, gagged and alive.

Valle was repeatedly denied bail, as was his co-conspirator Michael van Hise, who is awaiting trial.

The charges against Valle carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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