EXCLUSIVE: GIVES UP CUSTODY BATTLE CANNIBAL COP’S KID FIGHT
Ex-wife fears ‘murder’ of girl – he begs: Let me see her
TO GILBERTO VALLE’S ex-wife, he’s still the Cannibal Cop.
The notoriously kinky former NYPD officer has abandoned an effort to reenter his 6-year-old daughter’s life following a twoyear custody battle with his ex, Kathleen Mangan.
Valle had hoped to gradually resume acting as a father to the young girl, Josephine, whom he last saw when she was 11 months old.
“She has no idea who I am. I don’t know what she looks like,” Valle, 34, told the Daily News.
“I’ve been completely cleared, but that doesn’t mean my life is back to normal. This is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.”
Mangan, who lives in Reno, Nev., had sought to terminate Valle’s parental rights entirely. Last month Valle dropped the case, which has not been previously reported, after a judge ordered he pay his ex-wife’s attorney’s fees.
The former couple had been sparring over a neutral custody evaluation. Valle said he’d spent $50,000 on the case and couldn’t afford more legal expenses.
“I argued it’s in the child’s best interest to have a father. (But) Kathleen argued, ‘He might murder my daughter.’ I don’t think she really thinks that,” Valle said.
Valle now hangs on to the hope that his daughter will reach out to him in the coming years.
“It would be a lot better if she had a relationship with me for five or six years before she starts looking stuff up,” he said.
In 2012, Valle was arrested and charged with conspiring to kidnap and devour women. Mangan, who was mentioned in Valle’s cannibal fetish chats, fled their home in Queens with Josephine after viewing the online forums he frequented under the username “Girlmeat hunter.”
Neither Mangan or her lawyer responded to inquiries.
Valle was convicted a year later and faced up to life in prison. While locked up, Mangan, 32, served Valle with divorce papers, and he gave her full custody of their child while he focused on the criminal case. “I totally understood that, and her reaction and being afraid of me,” Valle said.
“I was hoping we could co-exist for the sake of our daughter . . . it just was never going to happen.”
But in June 2014, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Paul Gardephe overturned Valle’s conviction for conspiracy to kidnap,
ruling his online fantasies never entered the realm of reality. After the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Valle’s acquittal, he filed papers in Carson City, Nev., seeking visitation with his daughter.
The ensuing custody battle revived questions about whether Valle’s fringe fetish could be held against him in court.
“We have great concern that Ms. Mangan will be forced into a co-parenting relationship with a man who will continue to traumatize her through his very public persona as the Cannibal Cop,” Mangan’s attorney Lauren Berkich wrote in court papers.
“Gil and his counsel apparently believe that because Gil has not been convicted of a crime, he is innocent of any wrongdoing and deserves a relationship with his child. Gil is not innocent.”
Mangan wanted to shelter their daughter from the Cannibal Cop scandal.
“Josephine is a young girl, who will someday become a woman. Gilberto’s ‘fantasies’ and involvement in these chat rooms puts Josephine at risk, and given his affinity to fantasize about women close to him, there is a risk that Josephine may someday become a victim,” Mangan said in court papers.
Valle’s lifestyle since his release was also used against him.
“After his detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center, he confirmed . . . that he engaged in an episode of bondage with a consenting adult, a boundary heretofore that had never been crossed. That is to say, in August 2016, after being released from prison for his sexual conduct, his sexual behavior advanced to the involvement of another, outside of his fantasy world,” Berkich wrote, citing one of Valle’s sitdowns with a shrink.
His ex-wife argued that Valle publicly indulges in his fringe fetish, disqualifying him as a dad.
She noted that Valle participated in an HBO documentary on his ordeal and wrote a horror novel, “A Gathering of Evil,” about two attractive women living in Manhattan who are targeted by wealthy sadists.
A movie based on Valle’s memoir, “Raw Deal,” is also in the works. He’s pursuing a lawsuit for wrongful prosecution.
“Gilberto does not believe that his actions were wrong and it is believed he continues to frequent similar chat rooms . . . Gilberto continues to use the media and desires to remain in the limelight, flaunting his bizarre fantasies very publicly,” Berkich wrote.
“This court’s main concern is what is in the child’s best interest. That necessitates this court considering the impact on Josephine learning that her father is the ‘Cannibal Cop,’ or the impact on Josephine learning that her father fantasized about killing and cannibalizing her mother, or the continuing impact on Josephine of being exposed to media and publicity because Gil has apparently chosen to make this his livelihood,” Berkich wrote.
Valle works in construction, but said he doubts he has a future in the business. His writing, he said, was merely an effort to make a living given his limited opportunities.
“I’m trying to make lemonade of out lemons. This isn’t going to leave me,” he said.