Metro

There are simply no words: ‘Cannibal cop’ won’t testify in defense

Gilberto Valle

Gilberto Valle

HORROR SHOW: Authorities yesterday showed terrifying fetish porn they said was found on the computer of ex-cop Gilberto Valle (upper left), including this kidnapping image. (
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The final day of testimony was a real pressure cooker for the accused “cannibal cop.”

Gilberto Valle fought back tears yesterday after telling a judge he wouldn’t take the witness stand at his sensational trial for allegedly scheming online to kidnap, cook and eat his wife and several female friends.

“It is my desire not to testify — that is correct,” Valle said.

His brief comments, while the jury was out of the courtroom, marked the only time Valle has spoken aloud publicly since his trial began Feb. 25.

Public defender Robert Baum said Valle “started getting emotional” during the late-afternoon testimony of defense-team paralegal Alexandra Katz, who showed jurors the “Dark Fetish” Web site where Valle met the alleged co-conspirators with whom he engaged in depraved online chats and e-mail exchanges.

“It got him very emotional,” Baum said. “It brought back the whole experience.”

Baum also said Valle realized that “the trial is finally coming to a conclusion and his fate is in the jury’s hands. And that’s a heavy weight for someone to bear.”

Valle maintains that all his online activities were merely sexual-fantasy “role play,” and Baum said his lawyers advised Valle that he didn’t need to testify because “there is just no evidence outside the chats, and the chats are all fantasy.”

“The jury heard it all,” Baum said.

Earlier yesterday, the jury watched video testimony from the Russian founder of DarkFetishNet.com, Sergey Merenkov, who said he started the creepy porn site in early 2010 because “we saw a niche in the market” and wanted to create a meeting place “for these people that have similar interests.”

“So basically, DFN is a clone of Facebook, but it is oriented to people with fetishes that are not considered standard,” he said.

Also yesterday, prosecutors released grisly torture images from other Web sites that the FBI recovered from Valle’s computer, including naked women being sexually violated and bound with bizarre bondage gear.

The photos were shown to the jury on Monday, prompting several jurors to cover their mouths in shock and one woman to shake her head.

During a Feb. 19 deposition conducted on Skype from his home in Moscow, Merenkov said sexual asphyxiation is the “main fetish” on his site, along with “women in peril” and cannibalism.

Merenkov, 34, said most of the income from the site — which has about 38,000 members and about 4,500 active users — goes to keeping it running and that he makes his living running a company that sells Spanish ice cream in Moscow.

He said the site is “about fantasies only,” adding: “Fantasies should remain fantasies and not transfer to the criminal realm, so to speak.”

He said that he cooperated fully after he got an Oct. 1 e-mail from an FBI agent investigating Valle “because we take illegal activities very seriously.”

But Merenkov said he couldn’t turn over the contents of Valle’s “Girlmeat Hunter” account because Valle apparently had deleted it and the site’s software made it impossible to retrieve any data.

bruce.golding@nypost.com