RAW DEAL-Gil Valle and Brian Whitney

Raw Deal is the untold story of former News New York City police officer Gil Valley, who in twenty twelve became known throughout the world as the Cannibal Cop. It is part of the controversial saga of a man who is imprisoned for thought crimes, and a look into a world of dark sexuality and violence that most readers don't

know exists, except maybe in their nightmares. After Valley's arrest, media coverage exploded in a frenzy of lurid tabloid headlines and stories about the cop charged with planning the kidnap, torture, rape, and eat women, including his own wife. But here's the fascinating part. There was no such plan. In reality, Valley was simply engaging in his own private fantasies, albeit fantasies that are born and grotesque, and for that he was

thrown into prison. Valley faced life in prison for his charges and served twenty one months for nothing more than having online chats about his fantasies. Is finally exonerated of all charges. Raw Deal raises the question of when does thought become a crime, a question that goes beyond his perverse sexuality, to answers societies must deal with in order to meet the challenge of terrorism. It will challenge the reader's beliefs about free speech, the right to privacy, and

government's role in watching over us. The book they're featuring this evening is Raw Deal, The Untold story of New York Police Departments Cannibal cop with my special guests, author and journalists Gil Valley and Brian Whitney. Welcome to the program, gentlemen, Gil Valley and Brian Whitney.

up with Brian. We clicked pretty much right away, and Wild Blue was one of the first, I think the first publisher we actually directly contacted, and it was important for me to tell the story a way I wanted it to. You know, it was my story, so I didn't want a situation where someone would agree and then kind of hijack the story. I wanted it to be done my way, and Wild Blue was very bold and brave because there's a lot of graphic stuff in this book.

Dan and you read it, I'm sure you can agree with that.

there was no real intent. So then when he was actually convicted and and sent to prison, I actually tried to get in touch with Gil back then, Like I tried to get in touch with him through his lawyer back then when he was when he was incarcerated, and didn't have any luck on that, And then when he was exonerated, I reached out through his lawyer, the same lawyer, and she put us in touch. So I've been wanting to work with him on it for critical years.

been doing some ghostwriting work. And I was also already really interested in prisoner civil rights, and also I'm really interested in people being sort of judged because of having thoughts that don't fit in with the norm, which gil Gil certainly fits into that category. The whole thing is really interesting to me.

It's not something I ever volunteered to people. I didn't think. I mean, I just didn't want to tell anyone that, you know, it was something I kept to myself. It never affected me at all. I was a honor roll student in high school, I took college courses. I was a deansless student in college. I mean, none of this stuff ever affected who I was in real life. But it was still something I wanted to keep to myself because I was kind of afraid how people would react.

So it was really about the bondage type stuff, seeing a woman tied up and helpless. When I discovered pornography in my fifteen sixteen years old, I tended to gravitate toward websites that cater to that stuff. Women tied up, and I discovered one of these cannibal porn websites to college, and the whole story is told in the books, so I don't want to get into too much detail there, but and you know, from there, I discovered the dark

the website, the Dark Side of network. It was a social network with people with similar fantasies could chat and role play about similar things. So that's the cliff notes version.

you shared with anyone, especially in the beginning. What was your real life dating life. Like you talk about college, you talk about high school, you talk about how shy you were, So tell our audience who you really were. And in real life how sexual were you?

and just setting myself up to succeed in life. But I had very normal relationships. After all this happened, after I was arrested, you know, law enforcement went back to basically every woman I ever crossed paths with and in my life, it was ridiculous, and ninety nine percent of them had nothing but good things to say about me.

of my life. So when I went back to college, I doubled up on criminal justice and I started taking some classes where I had police officers and retired captains Down in Maryland. I went to the University of Maryland, so they made law enforcement sound very interesting, and I started to look at the NLPD, and the benefits they offered were outstanding, you know, the whole thing. And I wanted a career where I could kind of do something new every day. I could be outdoors and I could

help people for a living. That's what really drew me to become a police officer. And I loved it, you know, for the most part. Six years. I passed the sergeant exam. There were things, of course, I didn't like, but that's any job. I do miss it. I wish I had my old life back. But that ship, unfortunately has sailed, and here we are.

a living. There's no greater calling, I think, you know, but that said something I don't think I can ever do again, unfortunately.

and I just I had it bad for her. You know, she like she could do no wrong. We would hang out and she was frustrating, you know, we had a tumultuous back and forth. We would have an argument and we'd moved up again. And this was like eight nine years where nothing ever, nothing ever happened. You know, the more mature me would move on like right away. But I don't know, It's just always it was one of those things, you know, where I always held out hope,

but it never happened. And the fantasies I was having were the same fantasies A bondage, domination and all that kind of stuff, and I and I centered them around women that I knew in my life. That's where although my fantasies are unusual and abnormal and deviate, the fact that I centered them around women that I knew is not unusual at all. I think when people have fantasies, they they center them around people they know when they realize.

I don't think there's anything abnormal about that aspect, you know, right.

the peak of it. Yeah, part of this is pretty I mean, it's still like it's one thing to write it in a book and to write about it in an email. It's still pretty difficult to talk about it, even on the phone, you know what I mean. It's it's it's something I'll never get used to again. I didn't want any of this stuff out there. That this is out there, not by my choice, but it's out there. I wrote a book, so I know I have to talk about it. But that doesn't mean that it's that it's easy.

types of things. So I think even him trying to explain the explain the type of things that he was into. It's it's if we were all forced to explain the types of things that we were really into, I think would all be most of us are a lot of us that we might be a little bit uncomfortable.

Penhouse Forum, very much of this. You had an interest in the writing, and you're a good writer, obviously from this book, but also that you write in this book that you were creative and you were half of this or a good portion of this is the storytelling aspect, So maybe you can tell us about the websites you gravitated towards and really what happened in terms of finding people that you've chatted with and were more interested in, say the regular people that were on this, say forum or site.

And you know, some people wrote better than others. So I would chat and communicate with people who, like me, were decent storytellers and you know, not to brag about my writing skills, but I got the FBI to believe that I was a real kidnapper. You know, I was gonna really kidnap three you know, women on different continents on the same day. I mean, the FBI actually believed in that, As ridiculous as that sounds, but yeah, so I enjoyed the scenes. They were collaborative role plays, They

were fictional stories, but they were detailed. They sounded detailed, they sounded very graphic, and the whole idea it's like, who can all right, Like this guy writes pretty well, let me see if I can outdo him? Could I say something more? Dvan? And that's how it kind of snowballed, but it never got out of control again. It never affected my real life. At this point, I was a police officer. I had just met Kathleen, who ended up becoming my wife, and this stuff's never ever bled into

my real life. It never affected my ability to be a father or a husband. It was something I been on the side. It was something that I still kept private. The only people who knew were anonymous screen names on the internet. You know. I never shared my name where I was, from what I did for a living, and

neither did anybody else. We were all just anonymous screen names, and I think that helped with you know, when when you're just a screen name on a computer, you can pretty much say whatever you want and you feel safe and no one's ever going to find out. But when it's Gill Valley, when my name's attached to it now that all has happened, and you know, I was forced to read a lot of the things that I wrote

as part of the trial. And when I read a newspaper article, they always, you know, sign some really sick stuff that I wrote. And it's very tough for me to even read that, and I'm the one who wrote it, but just seeing my name next to it, it's a kind of a different element. I don't know if you guys could follow that, but I'm kind of rambling a bit, so I don't know if you want to.

It was a great three years, and unfortunately it came to this where, you know, I don't want to get too much into what's going on now with the family court and our daughter, but know we had a very very good relationship. She got pregnant. There was a surprise. It was not something we planned that soon, but you know, we made it work. We moved into a very big

apartment in Queens and just life was so good. But I was making enough money where she could be a stay at home mom, and that's what she wanted to do, and that's what worked for us. You know, she's hit at home with the with the baby. I worked, I did all the shopping. I did, and I never complained about it. It was something I enjoyed. You know, a man

is supposed to provide for his family. You know. Then the arrest happened and the trial happened, and there was this whole portrayal out there that I was a deadbeat father and I didn't care about the family, and that's just that didn't do anything to push a very to convict me. But as a man with pride, it really hurt to listen to my wife, you know, tell this narrative of what life was like in our home that

just was completely untrue. And I think I highlight certain things in the book and I provide, you know, text messages from when we were married, and anyone who reads those can't conclude that this was, you know, an unhappy situation.

We'll talk about that in a little bit, but let's talk about how this happens, because this isn't somebody went online, needless to say, they told you the FBI when they first spoke to you. And let's not get ahead in that that they had been under surveillance for eighteen months. But let's as you do know, and you do write in a book, tell us how this came to be.

Your computer was in repair, you shared a computer, What were the sites that you were into at that time, and how was it that Kathleen stumbled onto this and what was her reaction?

or gory or nothing like the Dark Fetish Network. So she woke me up, and you know, she was like she actually felt bad that she stumbled upon it, like she was almost blaming herself. He's like, you know, like I didn't mean to I wasn't stooping. He was just there and I'm sorry. So she was the one feeling bad. I was feeling kind of embarrassed because, as I said earlier, I had never told anyone about my interest in pornography. So I was embarrassed. I was nervous, but we talked

it through. I told I didn't give her a whole thing. I told her, listen, I've been you know, I'm kind of interested in bondage stuff. And then she came back with, well, let's see if we could spice up our sex life with this. So she we talked about maybe going into a sex shop and buying some toys. I never did

because two weeks later she installed spywear. She thought I was having an affair because of the time I was spending late at night on the computer on the internet, so she thought I was having an affair, so she installed spywear, and then that's how she found a dark fetish network and then all chats and emails and obviously she was horrified, and I never I never blamed her

for the way she reacted. I just imagine the person you're married to, you find out they're into this really violent stuff, and you know, centering the fantasies around people that you know in your real life, and in my case, I use pictures of her too. I use pictures of Kathleen as part of the story. So yeah, I never faulted her for how she reacted. Her first reaction despite all of that was Okay, I'm gonna get away for a while, but let's find a couple's therapists and work

this out. You know, she wasn't giving up on the relationship for you know, so I figured, as bad as it was, that was about as good of a reaction as she could possibly have at you know, at some point, she went home to Nevada with the baby, and somebody talked her into going to law enforcement, and that's when everything came crashing down. That's where I never fault at

her for how everything played out. I fault at the FBI for just being incredibly stupid and dishonest and you know, just completely turning her, convincing her that this was a real thing, that she was on the verge of being murdered, when it was so clear that that was the furthest thing from reality. So even today, I haven't spoken to Kathleen since all this happened, and we have family court

stuff pending. But some days I get a little upset and I kind of redirect that anger toward the FBI and the prosecutors and the people who completely turned her because again her initial reaction was, Okay, I'm like, I'm gonna get away, but this is something we're gonna work out. And you know, once law enforcement got involved in these absolute corrupt criminals, these stupid morons, you know, once they got involved, that was it. You know, everything was over.

denied bail? Which is quite unusual for anything outside of murder, isn't it.

a fetish site, and I know that. I know that to a lot of people that probably doesn't mean a whole lot, but you know, well, what does that matter if he's saying these types of things. I mean, the place that he was actually talking to the other people was a fantasy site. He wasn't like on some sort of secret Gorilla dark web place where he was plotting with these people. It was a very That's what it

was for. It was for people to have fantasies, to talk to people about their fantasies, and it just was. It was just fairly obvious to me and a lot of other people that I knew, because a lot of people I knew were talking about the case. A lot of people are talking about the case all over the world, and it just didn't seem right. It just didn't seem right that this maniac police officer was planning on kidnapping

and eating all these women. And then obviously Gil already alluded to this, but then when any sort of facts started coming out, it was it was like, you know, he was going to take them in his in his white van to this mountain house, and these places didn't even exist. I mean, the farther it went, the more. It was just amazing that that he even was being prosecuted at all to me.

who did the documentary. She was one of the people who told me if if if you were to black out the names of the court transcripts, you black out the names from the bail hearings and then the actual trial, you would think it's two completely different cases, because, as Brian just said, early on, there were things presented that just weren't true, and the trial happened, It's like, okay, so where is this you know, this GPS evidence that

I was actually stalking someone in real life that never happened. Of course, you know, there wasn't no evidence because that stuff never happened. So uh, you know, Danny mentioned I was being denied bail and that was unusual, and I was denied bail really based on these lies that were being told in court. And eventually the facts come out, we get all the discovery turned over and it's like so, you know, like like nothing happens that the judge was

lied to. You know, he sat there through bail hearings and he was lied to by these by these people and nothing happens. It's like, Okay, that's business as usual, so deal with it. Meanwhile, I'm denied bail arry confinement and it's like so what. But uh, you know, I never blamed the media coverage. I did read a lot of it when I was eventually released from prison, and you know, people think I hate the media, Like, No, the media was reporting what was being said in court.

What was being said in court was that, you know, I had names and addresses of women in my computer that never happened. That they were reporting that that I had actually exchanged personal information with people that never happened. And you know this thing with the they had GPS evidence that was on a woman's block that never happened either.

So I understand how people reacted early on, but it was based on a lot of misinformation, and that misinformation is still even to this day out there, which is why I was pushed to write the book, because I finally wanted my side out there, you know, and everything I say in this book is back up on court transcripts. I shared as much as I possibly could, even really embarrassing stuff. You know. Again, it's one thing to write

about it. It's okay to put it on paper, but to talk about it, as I said before, it's still pretty difficult.

saw again. You know the difference between these fantasy sites. But the government did have something. The prosecution did have something enough to convict someone. So what did they use? What was there again? What evidence did they their theory was based on? Tell us what their theory was based on? What did they go on to be able to say, to qualify to say that he was going to kidnap these women with a co conspirator and this Mountain House.

So explain this van Mountain House, this whole theory that the FBI has.

any real evidence that they had. I mean, I I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me at all that he was that he was convicted. Gill. I mean, maybe you could speak to that better, because i mean, someone on the outside he was there. I mean, it's someone on the outside when I'm when I'm reading, you know, the facts, not just what I've gotten through Gill, but just the facts in general. I mean, there's there's really I mean, it's a very rare thing for men to

be exonerated, as Gill was. So the exoneration was proof in itself that they didn't have any real evidence on them.

was chatting with. So they ended up they grouped. They took twenty four sets of communications me and twenty four different people. They determined that twenty one other sets of chats were fantasy, but three were real plans. If you look at and the judge highlighted this beautifully when he acquitted me and his written ruling, the chats have the same exact information in them. They had the same exact lies,

the same exact plots, everything virtually identical. Plus the quote unquote real chats had a plot, and the FBI said they were This was a serious thing. On February twenty If I was gonna kidnap a woman in Manhattan. I was gonna kidnap one in Ohio, and I was gonna another one to Pakistan, all on the same day. And this is a trial, and they're saying that this is a real thing. I mean, we had people in the jury laughing, people in the audience laughing when when when

that was revealed. But somehow I was still convicted. And I think, you know, Danny mentioned earlier the prosecutorium his conduct. The closing argument was just full of just disgusting. I mean, you know it. Basically, Number one, I didn't testify because the case ended up being so weak. I was like, what good is it going to do for me to testify. They're gonna hammer home all the chats again, you know,

read all these chats and the emails. We had already gone through that, So why though up there and live that again. They use that against me. They said in the closing argument, you know, you have to factor in that you heard nothing from the defenses to you know, you heard no explanation why he's doing this, So that's not allowed. That's against my constitutional right not to testify. There's also this theme of basically, thank god they caught him when he did, because he might do something in

the future. That's not what a trial is. The trial is based on what I already did in the past, not on what I might do in the future. Just hammering home, you know, just always mentioning that this is a police officer would a gun, This is a police officer would have gun, just over and over and over again, all the analogies they use. You know, they compared my case to an airplane hijacking, a bank robbery, to a whole bunch of stuff that the judge acquitted me based

on lack of evidence. Okay, he said, there's no evidence to support the guilty verdict, so the ruling stops here. But he did feel compelled to mention the misconduct because it was so rampant and so egregious that toward the end of his ruling he did say, you know, I do feel compelled to mention the trial tactics of the prosecution. We're not exactly on the level here. So that's what got the jury to convict. But thank god, the judge had the wisdom encouraged to do the right thing and

set that verdict aside. And as Brian mentioned earlier, the way I was acquitted. Just never happens for a trial judge to not only set the verdict aside, but dismissed a charge too. Normally a person would would would got a new trial, but he said, no, no new trial. The case is dismissed. So that never happens. That just shows what a travesty this prosecution was.

the only people I saw were my lawyers when they came. Uh, there's supposed to be paperwork for visitation for my family, and that stuff never worked out. It just always got lost or there was something fishy going on. And I don't really mentioned in the book because the prison guards for the most part, were very much in my corner and they they took care of me. They made sure I was there right. But the solitary confinement was a nightmare.

And there were you know, there were days where I'd wake up and I'd have a dream, right, I had a dream where I was with Kathleen and my daughter. I was having a dream where I was back in a patrol car. And then to wake up and that cold, dirty, you know, filthy cell.

with on the outside. You know, I'm relatively shielded, I'm hidden from everything, but my family is on the outside dealing with neighbors, coworkers, and again I had no way to talk to them, so I had no idea how they were handling everything. So add that to it. Add my Kathleen, who I hadn't realized how much she was involved in the prosecution at that time. I was worried about her, my daughter, the case, I mean, just and

then getting angry at the prosecutors who were lying. I you know, I know lying, but there's no one I can tell. There's no one who would listen to me at that point. So it was tough, and I still deal with issues today. You know, I can't sleep at my bedroom door closed because it makes me feel confined. It's just one of those things.

there's no getting rid of this at all. So yeah, you goddamn write them still in the government, you.

thank God for him. But while that's playing out, I'm also working on the complaint, as you said, the judicial misconduct against the main prosecutor in the case, who just blatantly, blatantly lied about many things, and you know, those were the main reasons I was an eyed bail and I just think it's right to file a formal complaint because

I don't think she's she should get away. I don't think that woman should be within one hundred yards of the courtroom, to be honest, because I don't want what she did to me to happen to somebody else.

supportive Kathleen. She took the stand the first day at the trial, and that was the first time I'd seen her since she left. So the trial started in late February and she left September twelfth, so that was five months or whatever. I can't do it. September to February, I hadn't seen her. So there she is, first time I'm seeing her, and she's the star witness. She's the first witness for the prosecutors, and I wasn't prepared for that. I was expecting her to just talk about what she

found and how she found it. I wasn't expecting to be absolutely bulldozed by a narrative of what life was like in her home that was completely false, you know. So she made me out to be completely incompetent as a father, someone who was disinterested in the family. And again that didn't really you know, I can be a piece of garbage father and still be not guilty or

the crime I was being charged with. But to sit there and listen to that stuff was extremely difficult when I mean me and her both know it's not true. So it was just it was a wave of emotions, you know, seeing her was tough. It was my actions that led to all this, you know, there was me taking part in these role plays that put us in

that situation. But then again it wasn't a crime, so you know, just going back and forth, and then I mean we both were, both of us were crying hysterically through the whole thing, and the judge had to grant us like several recesses because we just were both so we both couldn't compose ourselves and it was just I don't know if that was the toughest part of the trial.

I mean, the most embarrassing part of the trial were the two days or so where they just read line after line, you know, every goddamn thing I wrote in that website was read for like two straight days. So that was I mean, I wouldn't wish that level of embarrassment on my worst enemy, But I think emotionally, the toughest part was Kathleen's testimony.

but we can get there later. Julia, from the first day I met her, she didn't believe any She she got it right away. She said, like, these are really serious allegations, but I get that it's a game. It's like she kept comparing it to dungeons and dragons, you know, it's a role playing game. She understood it. And I saw her argue when at first bail hearing, and I said, you know what, I'm gonna be completely fine with her because she was you said the word passionate as she was.

She was aggressive. She was defending me aggressively despite the horrific and graphic allegations. And I thought that it also helped that she was a female. You know, this is a case depicting fictional violence against women, and I had a woman defending me, So I thought that I was a big help too. But uh, you know, there there wasn't much strategy early on because we didn't have any

evidence turned over yet. The prosecutors were speeling their nonsense at the bail hearings, and I was scribbling stuff down like okay, she's you know, the prosecutors saying this, Here's where I really was. Here's what really happened, and Julia would, you know, tell my side, but we had nothing to pack it up, so the judge is gonna believe the prosecutors. Eventually, when we got all the evidence turned over, Julia had like a new fire lit under earth because she realized that,

like everything I said was the truth. And I think she believed me, you know, early on, but in the back of her mind she had to be thinking, well, there's got to be something because what is he you know, why is he arrested? Why is he here? There has to be something. But months later, when finally all my bail chances were over, you know, I had no more chance at bail, the prosecutor then turned everything over and you know, surprise, it was all nonsense. So Julia was

I mean, she was angry. You know, she actually said that prosecutor belongs in prison, and you know, I don't want to speak for her, but apparently they don't talk anymore, those two, and I guess it's because of my case and how dishonest they were.

They get newspapers in prisons or you know, everyone followed the case and the papers and they all knew who I was. There was no hiding it. So my strategy, which is just key to myself, mind my own business, don't talk to anybody. Just you know, they had TVs and I hadn't. I hadn't watched TV in eight months, so there was a Yankee game on the I love baseball, so I got a chair out of my cell and I sent in for the TV and watched the Yankee

game for the first time in forever. And in the first couple of days were pretty much I was kind of by myself, and then I was reading a book sitting on one of the tables, and another inmate sat next to me. He was having a lunch, and out

of nowhere he goes, keep fighting, You're gonna win. So that was the first time someone really talked to me, and he kind of hinted that, yeah, you know, everybody here knows who you are, but everybody thinks the case is total bullshit, and you know, they don't believe any of the charges or whatever. So I think it was interesting. I think he must have been nominated somehow, maybe he

drew the short strong like someone. They must have been like, all right, somebody's got to talk to this guy to see what he's really like, and it was him, And then he probably went back and told everyone like, guy, he's completely normal. And then after that more and more people started to talk to me. And you know, no one ever got in my face, no one was ever mean or violent or of course I never let my

guard down. But I was able to survive there. And it was tough because I had been convicted and we had paperwork in to try and correct the injustice, but we didn't know when the judge was gonna rule, you know, so there was no date to look forward to. My dogs are you know, I'm sorry, so they there was just no you know, no end in sight. It was like today, it might be the day, or it might be tomorrow, or it might be two months from now.

But while I was in general population, I had people there who were they could tell when I was having it especially bad day. You know, there were days that were hard on others. Father's Day was impossible, my daughter's birthday was you know, just I don't even want to talk about that. Eventually, I ended up getting a job too to help pass more time. I ended up working in the kitchen. That was the subject of a lot

of jokes. I was back on the front page of the daily news because they found out that I worked in the kitchen, and you know, that became a big circus. But it helped pass the time. So again, nobody as a fourth police officer, no one ever ever got in my face, and that was something that, like, I relied on the support I had from inmates. You know, the police union and the cops were silent, but I had support from inmates in prison. Ghostigure.

your prosecution is vigorous. They make a lot of inroads and you figure we're not going to have you testify, which they thought they might have to do that. So tell us about how devastating was this to lose When you thought, I guess in your mind it was I'm ready to get out of here.

came out. So, as you said, people were laughing and the judge even had this smirk on his face, and people, I mean the courtroom was packed every day there was standing room only. It was a huge courtroom, and there were a lot of media there. And you know, Julia, my lawyer, had you know, relationships with some of the people in the press, and after that cross examination, during the next break, people in the media were telling her, you guys got it, this is this case is a joke.

There were articles written the next day. You know, the tabloids who had hammered me from the beginning, we're now saying. I remember one line in one of the papers was something like, did you hear that sound? That's the sound of the government's case brushing down the toilet, because like, this case is a complete joke, and they made the point that I made earlier. You know, that doesn't mean that people have to like me, or people have to be my friend or whatever. The question is, did I

belong in prison? That's the only thing I care about people who read this book. They're gonna be they're parked in this book that are gonna make people uncomfortable because I'm so you know, I share a lot of really graphic stuff about my fantasies, and the thought process behind that is I want the people who hate me the most to still conclude that I didn't belong in prison. But back then, I'm sorry.

it's almost always just about the actual fantasy. It's like that's where people get stuck. It's just like they stay right there and like and just want to go there and never want to talk about the fact that a man literally spent almost two years of his life in prison they didn't do anything. You know, it's mind blowing, right.

our paralegal. I mean, it was a really boring defense. Nothing I don't want to go so much into it. There's nothing substantial either way. It was just really quick and over in the day. And then they got to the closing arguments and I touched on before their closing argument was just completely improper, and Juliet got it all back with a really great closing argument. We felt really good.

The jury came back after three days and I heard that guilty word, and it was just utter, complete, shocking devastation. I mean I was already rehearsing what I was going to say to the press. You know what. I was like, all right, I'm going home today and then I go and see my dog, you know my dog. Oh, I missed my little bulldog, Dudly. I was gonna go play at my dog, and I was gonna have a home

cooked meal and catch up with everybody. And didn't just just just to hear guilty and you know that crime carried a possible life sentence, so I was facing life in prison. After that, I wasn't thinking about appeals or anything. I was just like shaking. I was shaking. Julia took my hand under the table as the verdict was being read, and after a guilty verdic came, she took my hand and she just like squeezed my hand under tail and they said there was a loud gasp in the courtroom.

I didn't even hear it because I was so shocked. But I mean, the twenty people told me that when the jury said guilty, people were like completely shocked. So over the next couple of days I got some of

that feedback. Julia actually told me that people from the US Attorney's office were calling her office and basically apologizing off the record, of course, but you know, that told me that maybe, by some miracle, there aren't honest people who work in that absolute cesspool of of of an office for prosecutors to be calling my lawyer and apologizing, you know. And Julian was getting emails from lawyers all

over the country. So, I mean, the shock and devastation wore off pretty quickly, and I kind of refocused on the appeal and with all this feedback we were getting, I thought the chances were good. We all thought the chances were good at getting a new trial, if not for the lack of evidence, just based on the closing argument alone, I mean, that was reason enough to give a new trial. The judge took the extra step, thank god, and dismissed the case, and then the Court of Appeals

upheld that. But it was a long you know, talking about it now for five minutes it's a lot different than living it for twenty one month.

So like, holy crap, it's gonna happen today. I'm really nervous, so I close the computer, I call her up on the phone, and we found out that Julia told me that the judge had requested pre trial services to be at a hearing the next morning. Now, pre trial services is something someone very unit that recommends whether or not a person gets bailed. So they actually, during the initial bail hearings, pre trial services actually recommend that that I that I get bail. But and and a judge nine

times out of ten agrees with pre trial services. I was the one that the judge didn't agree. And the nightmyville anyway, so we were feeling that, okay, so that has to mean that tomorrow's a bail hearing and I'm getting a new trial right, and we all kind of were feeling that we were feeling advised. I mean, a new trial would have been a huge victory. So the whole day, you know, one o'clock, two o'clock, three, still no ruling. Then we get into the evening hours and

still nothing. It's like seven o'clock and Julius said, they're staying at the office all night till they get word. But for me, everything shuts down at nine thirty. Computers, emails, and we're locked into ourselves for the rest of the night. So I gave her one final check at like nine twenty five. They said they asked the judges, you know, they called the judges chambers. They said, you know, please, we have a client in prison who's waiting. Can you

give us anything? They said, no, not yet. So it was a sleepless night, to say the least. The ruling finally came down around eleven o'clock that night, and everybody knew that I was acquitted except me. I was still in the cell. I had no freaking clue. My family

all knew, everybody knew. I didn't know until six o'clock the next morning, when they unlocked the cell and I checked my email, and you know, I had like nine emails from Julia and my family and you know, a couple of people in the media who I was starting to talk to. And that's when I found out that no, it wasn't a new trial. I was you know that

you acquitted me. So I was going home. It was like, suddenly, you know, I didn't want to make a huge scene because they were I'm with a bunch of inmates, so like, on the one sense, I'm ecstatic and I want to scream, but I also don't want to make a big scene in front of everybody. So I had a couple of goodbyes. I woke either this one guy was sleeping, this guy who had become friends with I went into a cell. I was like, I pat them on his shoulder. I

was like, hey, I'm going home. I got acquitted, and he's like, oh, nice, went back to sleep. He didn't. It was it was like that, like he was half asleep and I didn't make a big deal out of it. And then before he knew it, I was back in court and I was released. And this sounds really weird, but I almost wish I had just a day that I could have said goodbye to the people there who were so supportive of me, you know, people helped get

me through every day. But everything was so unusual about this case, and even the way I was acquitted was unusual. So that was it. But the funny part was that I was like tossing and turning in a cell while everybody already knew that I was going home.

but the case is still pending. The government had a right to appeal, and the Court of Appeals could have theoretically reinstated the guilty verdict, and then I would have ended up back in prison. So we felt pretty good. The judge made such a good ruling one hundred and eighteen pages and just spelled it out completely as to why no rational journy could reach a guilty verdict, and

so we felt pretty good. But there was always that doubt that, you know, I could theoretically one day end up back in prison, So that was tough to deal with a little bit. But in the end we won everything. So now I'm completely exonerated, completely free. It's never going back to court. It's over, like I can close the book on that. And but like I said earlier, I'm still dealing with a lot of issues. It's not like, you know, life goes on happily ever after. It's far from it.

I mean, he was much easier than I thought it was going to be. Sometimes when you get into these types of situations, you don't really know as a writer, you don't really know what you're getting yourself, what you're getting yourself into. And he was more than open to to uh, to writing and talking about anything. Initially, kind of what we did was I would I would probe different areas, ask him different questions. He would write a big section, then I would write a section, and we

kind of got through it like that. And then when we got to the court aspect, pretty much almost everything post arrest is almost is almost just him and and what I did was was this kind of like firm it up, move things around a bit. But I mean, he he was great to work with him, and it was a very it was a very good process. I know you said you said in an email that you that you liked the book, and and I appreciate that a lot of people have liked the book. It's really

it's really getting a lot of positive response. And when you have a situation where you're where you're writing a book with somebody that it was arrested for really really dark fetishes and fantasies, I think it's just the testament to the job that Geil did with my help. But the job that we did that did people like it as much as they do, So it was a great experience of me. I've really started working with Gil.

really good keep going. So I wrote the next chapter, and I its like, don't stop, man, just keep just keep going, keep rolling with it. And I ended up writing the rest of the book. And he, you know, did the all the fine tuning with grammar and punctuation and all that stuff. I mean, I was pretty good with a lot of it.

exact opposite with Gail. It was just we we started writing this, believe it or not, in like in July, like last July, and like we were we were, and we even had a period where we slowed down because we had a we had a literary agent at one point, and we were we were going through a process of tweaking it and fine tuning it, and we ended up that didn't end up working out for a variety of reasons,

but regardless, and we even slowed down. I mean, the actual time that we probably wrote the book was probably about I don't know, man, it was probably like three months, you know, maybe maybe maybe yeah, maybe not even that long.

the director of Cannibal Cop. So tell us briefly what that was, what you attempted to do and why you decided to do a documentary and what you thought of that end result in that short.

So he ended up writing to me directly at some point after the conviction, and once I got the general population, I got his email addressed and we started communicating the email, and he was one guy who I trusted. He was like publicly in my corner, and he was really disgusted with the trial and and really was upset with the verdict.

So one day we're emailing and he mentioned Aaron Lee Carr, who's a documentary filmmaker, and she was also extremely upset with the trial, and she was disappointed that I was in prison and I should never have been convicted. So he said that she wanted to talk to me, and she was interested in doing a documentary for HBO. This was still when I was in prison. We had the paperwork and you know, for the judge to overturn avert and I thought, well, hell, you know, let's put some

pressure on the judge on the court system. This girl wants to do a documentary about how I'm innocent. She's gonna question the prosecution here, Like, let's do it. So we communicated through email. My lawyers weren't really thrilled about it, but Aaron spoke with my lawyers too, and they seem to acknowledge at least that she seems different. She seems like she gets We think she'll do a good job. While Aaron and I were talking, she even visited me

in prison with my family. When my visits finally happened, she would come and visit with my family, and I just completely trusted her. She seemed to really get it. She was in my corner. She was like, I believe in your exoneration and all that stuff. She said all the right things. I mean, how could you not want to work with this girl. Furthermore, her father was a prominent New York Times journalist David Carr he written the book, and my brother ordered the book for me. It was

called A Knight of the Gun. So I read that when I was in prison, and it was a story of a man who was just completely a wreck. He had actually he was arrested tenoral at the times, he had actually beaten women. He was a severe drug addict, and he was in and out of the system, and finally he got help and turned his life around. And now he like he was just well respected and loved by everybody. This journalist to people like this is real human story of redemption. So I kind of paralleled my

situation with that. So when I get out of prison, I want to be like this guy. I want to rebuild my life better. And so that further pushed me. You know, here's this girl, her father lived through this situation, so surely, I mean, she gets what's going on here better than anybody. It was during the time that I

was talking to Aaron that the judge acquitted me. So then things really move forward with the documentary that you know, HBO was at my house a couple of times a week, just filming and talking and you know, getting a piece of what life was like. And you know, for me, while the case was still pending and my lawyers turned over a whole bunch of documents to her. There was there were letters written by the prosecutors to the judge

as part of my bail hearings. You know, these letters that said Valley exchange real personal information over the Internet. All that stuff that wasn't true. And Aaron was like flabbergasted by all this. She was like, oh my god, this is like, this is such an injustice and she said, I mean, all I wanted was an accurate representation of what happened. She promised me that, and I was really excited about the documentary and eventually it came out and I saw a special screening with my lawyers a week

before the premiere. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, which is like a huge deal and I was supposed to go. I had, you know, they gave me ten tickets, me and family friends and we were all going to go. But I saw pre screening and I was like just completely railroaded and completely disappointed by it. The documentary was basically did what the government did where they cherry picks things and you know the case for the judge to

do what he did. It had to be one hundred percent in my favorite to you know, zero percent, but Aaron made it fifty to fifty where and she said that these are her own words. After the thing air at Tribeca, she was doing a lot of interviews and all of a sudden, the narrative from Aaron was she wanted to do a documentary when half the people would walk out of there saying I think Gil would have done something, and the other half would say, I don't

think he would have done something. And that's not at all what I signed up for. It wouldn't make sense for me to sign up for that with the case still pending, right, So she was just she played me. She played me, my family, my lawyers, and I didn't appreciate that. And to compound it, she was like spewing all this crap to the media and it was just a really bad situation. It was like I was afraid

to show my face in public again. You know, I was, I was in a good spot, I was dating a girl, I was these things were finally picking up for me again, and I just completely shut down for about a month after that thing came out. It was is such a shock to the system and just a complete disappointment, and she got all this praise. People were like, oh my god, she got the Cannibal cop. How did she do it?

How did she get to participate? And I mean she got my participation by selling me a completely false bill of goods, And I wanted to make sure that I told part of that story in the book. I mean, she has no integrity at all, and HBO has even less integrity for knowing what she did and then continuing to hire her to do more projects. I have just a major problem with that.

I was ever completely forthright and honest with them. About how tough it was in prison, and I don't think they were ever honest with me about how tough it was on the outside while all this was going on. So it's kind of something we haven't talked about, but the book, you know, I talked in the book how tough it was. So it was very difficult for my mom to get through that stuff, but she read it

and she loved it. And I've had friends who, you know, acquaintances who I knew in high school, who I didn't really talk too much after I graduated, they reached out to me on social media, like, you know, I'm sorry this happened, and they loved the book, and it just people are so happy that my side of the story is finally out there, and as far as like strangers and people just leaving reviews on Amazon, I was a little worried at that the book was too graphic and

people were going to be completely put off by you know, the prologue, for instance, is very graphic, and it's one of the fantasy scenes and it's very detailed, and it was something that I was I was a little concerned that people might not be able to get past that stuff, and just kind of shut down and you know, want to curse me out and things like that. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive and people who have read the book, and that's something that just makes me so

happy as an author. Where people say it's a it's gripping and they couldn't put the book down, but it's also an easy read, and that's something I wanted to do. You know, I didn't want a complicated book. I wanted something people could read fairly easily as far as the you know, the writing style. I mean again, there's very graphic stuff, challenging for some people to get through, I'm sure, but they get through it and they reached the right conclusion.

So so far, I'm just very happy with how it's worked out, and I have no regrets at all in doing this. I know it's kind of bringing everything back to life again, but I'm at a point now mentally where I've sort of, i mean, I kind of have no choice. I have to learn to live with this and in a sense sort of embrace it, and it's just part of me now. This whole cannibal cop thing

is something I'm never gonna shake. So rather than hide from it, I've just learned to live with it and you know, laugh about it when I can, and you know, not that everything is always I'm okay with people joking around because I'd rather people make fun of me and joke around and be afraid. But there's a part of

this case that's just so heartbreaking. There's a five year old girl out there, my daughter who has no idea who her father is, and my family who has been completely shut out of her life too, and they did nothing at all to deserve that. And that's the real heartbreaking part of the case that after reading the book, people are finally starting to get to you know, where I'm not some punchline. You know, I'm a human being too,

I'm a father. And that's been a welcome response where people have left a review on Amazon where like they're talking to me directly and they're saying, I hope you reunite with your daughter soon, and that's just so touching and emotional. It just feels good that after all this time, people are finally you know, getting it.

I think it's just that kind of a book that someone's going to be like, you know, not just whatever happened with that case, but it is an important case, and I think I think people will discover it, people will write about it, It'll get noticed by different groups of people for a long time. So it's been a very positive experience for me as well.

there and I welcome it. You know. I love talking and interacting with people who read the book or have questions about I'm very open. It's one thing that I think Brian realized is I literally answer every question. So it's all part of moving on and accepting this part of my life and just not hiding from anything, you know. And it's worked out very well. So people should feel free to reach out.