Defense Rests as Officer Declines to Testify

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Lawyers for Gilberto Valle, the New York police officer accused of plotting to kidnap, kill and cannibalize women, rested their case on Tuesday, shortly after the officer said he would not take the witness stand in his own defense.

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Gilberto Valle

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“It is your desire not to testify in this case?” the judge, Paul G. Gardephe of Federal District Court, asked.

“It is my desire not to testify, that’s correct,” Officer Valle said.

“And you believe that is in your best interests?”

“Yes, your honor,” the officer said.

The question of whether Officer Valle would testify had appeared to be an open one until late Monday, when one of his lawyers, Julia L. Gatto, wrote to the judge saying that her client “intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.”

Prosecutors have charged that Officer Valle plotted his crimes through Internet chats and other electronic messages exchanged on a fetish Web site, and that he took other steps, like conducting surveillance of potential victims, to bring his plans to fruition. The defense has argued that Mr. Valle had been engaged in fantasy role play on a deviant fetish site, and had never intended any harm.

Officer Valle’s decision not to testify and another decision by the defense — not to call a prominent forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, who was to have testified that the officer had a mental condition — offered clarity about the defense’s strategy as closing arguments were scheduled for later this week.

“The case is about the government’s failure to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Robert M. Baum, another defense lawyer, said after the proceedings on Tuesday. “There is just no evidence outside the chats, and the chats are a fantasy.”

Mr. Baum added: “Our advice was that he didn’t need to testify. It’s about a lack of evidence, and Gil had nothing to add.”

The defense began its case on Tuesday with videotaped testimony from Sergey Merenkov, the Russian creator of the fetish Web site at the heart of the government’s case. Both sides questioned Mr. Merenkov, who lives in Moscow, via teleconference last month, and the video was played for the jury.

Mr. Merenkov, 34, who described his main job as selling Spanish ice cream in Moscow, said he created the Web site in 2010 because “we saw a niche in the market” and “decided to jump in.” He said the site was devoted to people with sexual fetishes — “all fetishes that exist that are legal,” he said. He said the users played out fantasies that included foot fetishes, sexual asphyxiation and cannibalism. He likened the site to Facebook, because it afforded users private chats, groups and the ability to publish photo albums.

He said the Web site had about 38,000 members, including 4,500 who visited at least three times a week. He estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of the users were women. The site’s purpose, he said, was about fantasy only, and he added that he had kicked users off when, as he put it, “let’s say that it seemed not to be fantasy anymore.”

The testimony and a later presentation about the Web site by a defense paralegal, Alexandra Katz, who said she had visited it 50 to 100 times as part of her research for the case, appeared intended to demystify the site and to suggest that it was used commonly by many people.

But under cross-examination by a prosecutor, Randall W. Jackson, Mr. Merenkov acknowledged that there was no way to know whether users calling themselves female actually were. He said he did not monitor users’ private conversations and had “no way of knowing” whether they were involved in illegal activities or even who they were.

Mr. Merenkov said it would like asking Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief, “if he knows each and every user on Facebook — of course not.”

As the proceedings ended, Officer Valle stood with his lawyers and appeared to hold back tears.

“I think it’s just the knowledge that we’re finally coming to a conclusion and his fate is in the jury’s hands,” Mr. Baum, his lawyer, told reporters, adding that for Officer Valle, it was “a huge weight” to bear.