A crony of “Cannibal Cop” Gilberto Valle says he shouldn’t be held accountable for buying a stun gun to feed his sick fantasies now that the computer-trolling ex-lawman was acquitted.
Retired Stuyvesant HS librarian Christopher Asch filed legal papers Tuesday noting that Valle relied on an NYPD computer to collect information on the women he fantasized abducting and eating – and suggested that such action isn’t any different than Asch buying a stun gun to juice up his fantasies.
“In neither case, did the defendants take ‘concrete steps’ to actually kidnap anyone,” Asch’s lawyer Brian Waller wrote Manhattan federal Judge Paul Gardephe, asking the jurist to overturn his client’s conviction on the same grounds he acquitted Valle.
Valle was released from prison in July after Gardephe determined that just because the ex-cop fantasized about kidnapping, raping, torturing and eating women didn’t mean he was actually plotting to commit the gruesome crimes. Gardephe did uphold Valle’s conviction of illegally using the NYPD’s federal database, but Valle had already served enough time in jail for that lesser crime.
At issue are the concrete steps prosecutors say Asch took to carry out his fetishes that go beyond Internet fantasy chats, including buying a 20-million-volt stun gun, clamps and a whip.
“Mr. Asch’s actual purchase of a stun gun and other supplies might seemingly distinguish Mr. Asch’s case from Mr. Valle’s, but this is a distinction without difference,” Waller wrote.
“Mr. Valle also took several ‘real world’ actions, which the court found to be consistent with fantasy role play. Indeed, there is no meaningful distinction between Mr. Asch purchasing a stun gun and Mr. Valle accessing a law enforcement database to obtain personal information of potential targets.
“If Mr. Valle was only fantasizing, as the court has determined he was, then what was his purpose in illegally obtaining this information?
“The answer has to be that obtaining this information gave Mr. Valle a thrill. It made the fantasy seem more real or authentic, even though he never intended to use the information to actually harm anyone.”
Asch and New Jersey mechanic Michael Van Hise were both found guilty by a jury in March of scheming to carry out gruesome fantasies of kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing women.
They were busted after the feds tied Van Hise, who is also seeking a new trial, to Valle through depraved online chats.
Asch and Van Hise face life in prison.
Although Gardephe overturned Valle’s jury conviction, he threw the book three weeks ago at the only co-defendant in the case who pleaded guilty.
Richard Meltz, a 66-year-old ex-chief of police at US Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Mass, was sentenced to 10 years in jail — the maximum sentence under his plea deal with the government.
Meltz, Asch and Van Hise allegedly exchanged e-mails and online chats about helping Van Hise rape and murder his wife, sister-in-law, four young nieces and nine-year-old stepdaughter.
The feds say the trio abandoned the scheme after Valle was busted separately plotting his cannibalism plan.
Meltz and Asch then plotted to kidnap a female FBI agent, who was working undercover. At Meltz’s direction, Asch allegedly purchased a Taser at a Pennsylvania gun show for the planned kidnapping.
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