‘Cannibal’ cop can’t sue: judge

An ex-NYPD officer acquitted of plotting to kidnap and cannibalize women won’t be able to sue the government for unlawful imprisonment, a Manhattan federal judge decreed.

Judge Paul Gardephe wrote that Gilberto Valle’s sensational case did not meet the legal requirements for a “certificate of innocence,” which would have allowed the former cop to bring legal claims against the feds.

Gardephe said that the so-called cannibal cop left the feds little choice but to bring charges after learning of his creepy conduct.

“It is difficult to conceive of a matter in which a defendant more clearly brought about his own prosecution. In the middle of the night, in the solitude of his own apartment, Valle (inset) — an NYPD officer who patrolled the streets of New York City each day with a firearm and handcuffs — planned and schemed with others over hundreds of hours, in excruciating detail, how he would kidnap, sexually torture, and murder real women he knew, including his wife,” Gardephe wrote Thursday.

A jury found Valle guilty of kidnapping conspiracy in 2013.

Gardephe later tossed the conviction, ruling that Valle’s twisted fantasies “existed solely in cyberspace.” Valle never took sufficient steps in the real world to make his dark web fantasies actual crimes, the judge ruled.

By that time Valle had spent nearly two years in jail.

Valle, now 36, said he hadn’t yet read the ruling when reached by phone. He now works in construction and writes extreme horror novels.

“I have all the respect in the world for this judge and his usual thorough reasoning. I respect this decision and will continue to move on and rebuild my life,” he said.