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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zupanski. Good Evening, When, if ever,
Speaker 3: does a thought cross the line and become a crime?
Speaker 3: Raw Deal is the untold story of former News New
Speaker 3: York City police officer Gil Valley, who in twenty twelve
Speaker 3: became known throughout the world as the Cannibal Cop. It
Speaker 3: is part of the controversial saga of a man who
Speaker 3: is imprisoned for thought crimes, and a look into a
Speaker 3: world of dark sexuality and violence that most readers don't
Speaker 3: know exists, except maybe in their nightmares. After Valley's arrest,
Speaker 3: media coverage exploded in a frenzy of lurid tabloid headlines
Speaker 3: and stories about the cop charged with planning the kidnap, torture, rape,
Speaker 3: and eat women, including his own wife. But here's the
Speaker 3: fascinating part. There was no such plan. In reality, Valley
Speaker 3: was simply engaging in his own private fantasies, albeit fantasies
Speaker 3: that are born and grotesque, and for that he was
Speaker 3: thrown into prison. Valley faced life in prison for his
Speaker 3: charges and served twenty one months for nothing more than
Speaker 3: having online chats about his fantasies. Is finally exonerated of
Speaker 3: all charges. Raw Deal raises the question of when does
Speaker 3: thought become a crime, a question that goes beyond his
Speaker 3: perverse sexuality, to answers societies must deal with in order
Speaker 3: to meet the challenge of terrorism. It will challenge the
Speaker 3: reader's beliefs about free speech, the right to privacy, and
Speaker 3: government's role in watching over us. The book they're featuring
Speaker 3: this evening is Raw Deal, The Untold story of New
Speaker 3: York Police Departments Cannibal cop with my special guests, author
Speaker 3: and journalists Gil Valley and Brian Whitney. Welcome to the program, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: Gil Valley and Brian Whitney.
Speaker 5: Thank you ver much, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Let's start with you, Gil, Thank
Speaker 3: you very much for coming on to do this interview,
Speaker 3: and congratulations on this book. Very very very interesting.
Speaker 5: Let's shots.
Speaker 3: Tell us how we get to You're welcome. Now, tell
Speaker 3: us how you came to get a publisher to publish
Speaker 3: this story. This is basically a memoir. This is your story.
Speaker 3: So tell us just a little bit about how you
Speaker 3: came to Wild Blue Press and how they agreed to
Speaker 3: let you write this book.
Speaker 5: Well, there were people interested in this story for the
Speaker 5: longest time. I knew I had wanted to write a
Speaker 5: book because there was still so much misinformation out there.
Speaker 5: A lot of the facts out in the media were incorrect,
Speaker 5: and I just felt I owed it to myself and
Speaker 5: to my family and the people who's afforded me to
Speaker 5: get the full, accurate story out there. So I hooked
Speaker 5: up with Brian. We clicked pretty much right away, and
Speaker 5: Wild Blue was one of the first, I think the
Speaker 5: first publisher we actually directly contacted, and it was important
Speaker 5: for me to tell the story a way I wanted
Speaker 5: it to. You know, it was my story, so I
Speaker 5: didn't want a situation where someone would agree and then
Speaker 5: kind of hijack the story. I wanted it to be
Speaker 5: done my way, and Wild Blue was very bold and
Speaker 5: brave because there's a lot of graphic stuff in this book.
Speaker 5: Dan and you read it, I'm sure you can agree
Speaker 5: with that.
Speaker 3: Sure, So.
Speaker 5: You know, I just have to thank them. You know,
Speaker 5: they gave me the platform to finally for the first time,
Speaker 5: and this has been going on now for four years,
Speaker 5: four years out of my life, and this is the
Speaker 5: first time the full story has been out there. So
Speaker 5: I owe them a lot for giving me the opportunity
Speaker 5: to tell my.
Speaker 3: Story, certainly, and it's for those people that have seen
Speaker 3: Cannibal Cop on Netflix, Aaron Carr's documentary, this is a
Speaker 3: lot different, an incredibly different story that is being told
Speaker 3: rather than that documentary. And we'll talk about that a
Speaker 3: little bit later, as you do in your book. Now,
Speaker 3: Brian uh tell us why you became interested in this
Speaker 3: story and working on this story with Gil Valley.
Speaker 6: Sure, when it first came out, it was it was
Speaker 6: just all over the news, is that this this really
Speaker 6: scary cop was like trying to kidnap these women and
Speaker 6: and he was going to like kidnap them, He's going
Speaker 6: to kill them, He's going to eat them, and so
Speaker 6: on and so forth. And then very quickly it became
Speaker 6: really apparent to me, and I would think any anybody
Speaker 6: that was really paying attention that that he hadn't done anything,
Speaker 6: that these were just fantasies, and that that you know,
Speaker 6: there was no real intent. So then when he was
Speaker 6: actually convicted and and sent to prison, I actually tried
Speaker 6: to get in touch with Gil back then, Like I
Speaker 6: tried to get in touch with him through his lawyer
Speaker 6: back then when he was when he was incarcerated, and
Speaker 6: didn't have any luck on that, And then when he
Speaker 6: was exonerated, I reached out through his lawyer, the same lawyer,
Speaker 6: and she put us in touch. So I've been wanting
Speaker 6: to work with him on it for critical years.
Speaker 3: What is your background informs your decision to work on
Speaker 3: this case? Basically on this book, I should say, but
Speaker 3: also what does your background include you talked about the ALCU.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I worked for the American Civil Liberties Union as
Speaker 6: a as a prisoner advocate. Basically it was called a
Speaker 6: prison law coordinator position. But I've been ghostwriting co authoring
Speaker 6: for a while. I did not ghost write this with Gil.
Speaker 6: We definitely co authored it the whole way, but I've
Speaker 6: been doing some ghostwriting work. And I was also already
Speaker 6: really interested in prisoner civil rights, and also I'm really
Speaker 6: interested in people being sort of judged because of having
Speaker 6: thoughts that don't fit in with the norm, which gil
Speaker 6: Gil certainly fits into that category. The whole thing is
Speaker 6: really interesting to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's no denying you know that. I mean, there's
Speaker 5: some weird, deving things. But the question isn't whether people
Speaker 5: agree with that or if people like me for that.
Speaker 5: The question is did I belong in prison? And anyone
Speaker 5: who pays attention, anyone who takes the time to read
Speaker 5: the book, will hopefully reach that right conclusion that I
Speaker 5: didn't you know, of course, no, I did not belong
Speaker 5: in prison.
Speaker 3: Now, just like any book, we are going to have
Speaker 3: to go back in this story, as you do, to
Speaker 3: tell us how you grew up. How you got to
Speaker 3: the point where these fantasies were important enough that you
Speaker 3: risk certain things in your life and you were discovered.
Speaker 3: So let's at least find out how you grew up.
Speaker 3: Everybody wants to know how. Again, they have an idea
Speaker 3: of who you are and how you became that way.
Speaker 3: But in the book, you tell us how you grew
Speaker 3: up in Queens, New York, So tell.
Speaker 5: Us, Yeah, what your was like? Yeah, extremely normal childhood.
Speaker 5: My parents separated when I was very young, that was
Speaker 5: about the only thing that wasn't normal. But I went
Speaker 5: to Catholic school my whole life. I had no problems
Speaker 5: making friends. I played baseball. I was basically the all
Speaker 5: American kid. When I hit puberty, I started realizing that
Speaker 5: I was getting aroused by certain things. I would see
Speaker 5: a TV show or a movie and I would see
Speaker 5: scenes of a woman tied up, and that's what aroused me.
Speaker 5: It's not something I ever volunteered to people. I didn't think.
Speaker 5: I mean, I just didn't want to tell anyone that,
Speaker 5: you know, it was something I kept to myself. It
Speaker 5: never affected me at all. I was a honor roll
Speaker 5: student in high school, I took college courses. I was
Speaker 5: a deansless student in college. I mean, none of this
Speaker 5: stuff ever affected who I was in real life. But
Speaker 5: it was still something I wanted to keep to myself
Speaker 5: because I was kind of afraid how people would react.
Speaker 5: So it was really about the bondage type stuff, seeing
Speaker 5: a woman tied up and helpless. When I discovered pornography
Speaker 5: in my fifteen sixteen years old, I tended to gravitate
Speaker 5: toward websites that cater to that stuff. Women tied up,
Speaker 5: and I discovered one of these cannibal porn websites to college,
Speaker 5: and the whole story is told in the books, so
Speaker 5: I don't want to get into too much detail there,
Speaker 5: but and you know, from there, I discovered the dark
Speaker 5: the website, the Dark Side of network. It was a
Speaker 5: social network with people with similar fantasies could chat and
Speaker 5: role play about similar things. So that's the cliff notes version.
Speaker 3: Before we get to all that. Though you talk about
Speaker 3: this normal upbringing you normal, you talk about having you
Speaker 3: what would you call it fixed in terms of just
Speaker 3: like a gay person doesn't choose these images, the things
Speaker 3: that you fantasized about and the things that turned you
Speaker 3: on initially, like I say, watching television programs that you
Speaker 3: had this idea of the bondage, and so you gravitate
Speaker 3: towards that. But in your real life because this again,
Speaker 3: this is something you kept secret. This is not something
Speaker 3: you shared with anyone, especially in the beginning. What was
Speaker 3: your real life dating life. Like you talk about college,
Speaker 3: you talk about high school, you talk about how shy
Speaker 3: you were, So tell our audience who you really were.
Speaker 3: And in real life how sexual were you?
Speaker 5: Not very sexual? I never had problems making friends. I
Speaker 5: had friends, male friends and female friends. If I liked
Speaker 5: the girl, I tend to get to get a little
Speaker 5: shy and I would clam up a bit. I didn't
Speaker 5: have sex until I was twenty five. There was nothing
Speaker 5: that really preoccupied me that much. I wasn't overly concerned
Speaker 5: and oh my god, I have to have sex before
Speaker 5: I graduate from college. It just never you know. I
Speaker 5: was very focused on school and you know, doing well
Speaker 5: and just setting myself up to succeed in life. But
Speaker 5: I had very normal relationships. After all this happened, after
Speaker 5: I was arrested, you know, law enforcement went back to
Speaker 5: basically every woman I ever crossed paths with and in
Speaker 5: my life, it was ridiculous, and ninety nine percent of
Speaker 5: them had nothing but good things to say about me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Gill was a normal guy. I never felt threatened
Speaker 5: by him. We were friends, We hung out all the time,
Speaker 5: and that's what That's who I really was, just a regular, unassuming,
Speaker 5: nice guy.
Speaker 3: How do you become interested you're in college. How do
Speaker 3: you become interested because you think going to college thinking
Speaker 3: about law enforcement? How is it that you get influenced
Speaker 3: to consider law enforcement and take us from there? Once
Speaker 3: you do have this interest.
Speaker 5: Sure, I declared psychology early on as a major. After
Speaker 5: sophomore year, I had an internship in Manhattan in an
Speaker 5: office building. Regular nine to five office job paid pretty
Speaker 5: well for a you know, a twenty year old. But
Speaker 5: the one thing I took from there is that there's
Speaker 5: no way in hell I wanted to be in an
Speaker 5: office or sit behind a computer screen for the rest
Speaker 5: of my life. So when I went back to college,
Speaker 5: I doubled up on criminal justice and I started taking
Speaker 5: some classes where I had police officers and retired captains
Speaker 5: Down in Maryland. I went to the University of Maryland,
Speaker 5: so they made law enforcement sound very interesting, and I
Speaker 5: started to look at the NLPD, and the benefits they
Speaker 5: offered were outstanding, you know, the whole thing. And I
Speaker 5: wanted a career where I could kind of do something
Speaker 5: new every day. I could be outdoors and I could
Speaker 5: help people for a living. That's what really drew me
Speaker 5: to become a police officer. And I loved it, you know,
Speaker 5: for the most part. Six years. I passed the sergeant exam.
Speaker 5: There were things, of course, I didn't like, but that's
Speaker 5: any job. I do miss it. I wish I had
Speaker 5: my old life back. But that ship, unfortunately has sailed,
Speaker 5: and here we are.
Speaker 3: You can say you enjoyed being a cop. You were
Speaker 3: a good cop, you were in you were a cop
Speaker 3: for the right reasons, and you didn't take advantage of
Speaker 3: being a cop you were.
Speaker 5: And yeah, six years. I never had one civilian complaint
Speaker 5: on my record. I never had any disciplinary problems. As
Speaker 5: I said, I passed a sarganst exam on the first attempt.
Speaker 5: I had a very good and rewarding six years. And
Speaker 5: it's something that no one can take for me. I know,
Speaker 5: I was a good cop. I was well respected by
Speaker 5: my peers, by my supervisors, and by the community. So
Speaker 5: you know, like I said, there are things I miss.
Speaker 5: I missed that career of helping people, you know, for
Speaker 5: a living. There's no greater calling, I think, you know,
Speaker 5: but that said something I don't think I can ever
Speaker 5: do again, unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Now you also talk about relationships that you had were
Speaker 3: long standing relationships that never really evolved into romantic relationships,
Speaker 3: like Melanie and k from Maryland. So tell us first
Speaker 3: about Melanie and basically what really it entailed the relationship,
Speaker 3: What did you would have liked in real life? And
Speaker 3: then what was your fantasy at that time, so that
Speaker 3: we can understand a little bit of your thought process
Speaker 3: in real life.
Speaker 5: And the fact Melanie's not her real name. There are
Speaker 5: some names I changed in the book. I just didn't
Speaker 5: feel like it was appropriate to bring these women back
Speaker 5: into the whole thing again. You know, they did nothing wrong,
Speaker 5: they didn't want to be involved in any of this,
Speaker 5: so I decided to change their name. So well, you know,
Speaker 5: we'll stick with Melanie. But she was the first girl
Speaker 5: I fell in love with, and everyone remembers the first
Speaker 5: person they fall in love with. I was sixteen years old,
Speaker 5: and I just I had it bad for her. You know,
Speaker 5: she like she could do no wrong. We would hang
Speaker 5: out and she was frustrating, you know, we had a
Speaker 5: tumultuous back and forth. We would have an argument and
Speaker 5: we'd moved up again. And this was like eight nine
Speaker 5: years where nothing ever, nothing ever happened. You know, the
Speaker 5: more mature me would move on like right away. But
Speaker 5: I don't know, It's just always it was one of
Speaker 5: those things, you know, where I always held out hope,
Speaker 5: but it never happened. And the fantasies I was having
Speaker 5: were the same fantasies A bondage, domination and all that
Speaker 5: kind of stuff, and I and I centered them around
Speaker 5: women that I knew in my life. That's where although
Speaker 5: my fantasies are unusual and abnormal and deviate, the fact
Speaker 5: that I centered them around women that I knew is
Speaker 5: not unusual at all. I think when people have fantasies,
Speaker 5: they they center them around people they know when they realize.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's anything abnormal about that aspect, you know, right.
Speaker 3: So you again, you as you talk about you have
Speaker 3: these normal relationships. They're platonic. Uh, they're you're close friends,
Speaker 3: mind you, and but you have a fantasy life that
Speaker 3: is can we say fair, it is evolving. You are
Speaker 3: now interested in some websites. We talk about Mookie's Kitchens.
Speaker 3: So just when is it that you again add cannibalism
Speaker 3: to part of your fantasy.
Speaker 5: It was I think by sophomore year college. I was
Speaker 5: about twenty years old and I discovered that website, and
Speaker 5: it was it was more about the idea of a
Speaker 5: woman being tied up and like in preparation to be cooked.
Speaker 5: My fantasy's never got to the part where you know,
Speaker 5: it was actually carving and it like the all the
Speaker 5: bloody stuff. It never got that far. It was more
Speaker 5: about the bonded stuff. And I liked the scenario where
Speaker 5: she'd be, you know, helpless and like that would be
Speaker 5: the peak of it. Yeah, part of this is pretty
Speaker 5: I mean, it's still like it's one thing to write
Speaker 5: it in a book and to write about it in
Speaker 5: an email. It's still pretty difficult to talk about it,
Speaker 5: even on the phone, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 5: it's it's something I'll never get used to again. I
Speaker 5: didn't want any of this stuff out there. That this
Speaker 5: is out there, not by my choice, but it's out there.
Speaker 5: I wrote a book, so I know I have to
Speaker 5: talk about it. But that doesn't mean that it's that
Speaker 5: it's easy.
Speaker 6: No, I was just going to say quickly. I mean,
Speaker 6: this to me is one of the most interesting aspects
Speaker 6: of the of the whole scenario because because so many
Speaker 6: different people have very odd fantasies. Some of them are
Speaker 6: some of them are dark, some of them are scary,
Speaker 6: some of them are really silly. I mean, there's so
Speaker 6: many different paraphilias and fetishes that that people have. But
Speaker 6: I mean, Gill is the only person I can think
Speaker 6: of that was actually you know, incarcerated for thinking these
Speaker 6: types of things. So I think even him trying to
Speaker 6: explain the explain the type of things that he was into.
Speaker 6: It's it's if we were all forced to explain the
Speaker 6: types of things that we were really into, I think
Speaker 6: would all be most of us are a lot of
Speaker 6: us that we might be a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Explain that way. I can, Yeah, I have, I can
Speaker 3: relate to that. Yes, you're you're absolutely right. So maybe
Speaker 3: we'll what I just wanted to tell what I wanted
Speaker 3: to go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 5: No, I was just gonna just take you back all that.
Speaker 5: This isn't three guys, you know, grabbing a beer. This
Speaker 5: is this is a show, and you know people are
Speaker 5: listening to those people I don't know, and it's just anyway,
Speaker 5: the points made. It's tough to talk about. So let's uh,
Speaker 5: let's keep it moving now.
Speaker 3: The other part of this is that you like very
Speaker 3: much like a Penthouse Forum. You know, if you could
Speaker 3: believe every one of those letters into the editor on
Speaker 3: Penhouse Forum, very much of this. You had an interest
Speaker 3: in the writing, and you're a good writer, obviously from
Speaker 3: this book, but also that you write in this book
Speaker 3: that you were creative and you were half of this
Speaker 3: or a good portion of this is the storytelling aspect,
Speaker 3: So maybe you can tell us about the websites you
Speaker 3: gravitated towards and really what happened in terms of finding
Speaker 3: people that you've chatted with and were more interested in,
Speaker 3: say the regular people that were on this, say forum
Speaker 3: or site.
Speaker 5: Well, the website Dark Fetish Network it was. It kind
Speaker 5: of builds itself as a Facebook for people, like a
Speaker 5: social network for people with unusual fetishes, and it's more
Speaker 5: about communication people talking about the things they're into. And
Speaker 5: then you find they divide those site into groups, so
Speaker 5: you get into who's more into bondage and domination. You
Speaker 5: see the members who are you know, into that stuff.
Speaker 5: And you know, some people wrote better than others. So
Speaker 5: I would chat and communicate with people who, like me,
Speaker 5: were decent storytellers and you know, not to brag about
Speaker 5: my writing skills, but I got the FBI to believe
Speaker 5: that I was a real kidnapper. You know, I was
Speaker 5: gonna really kidnap three you know, women on different continents
Speaker 5: on the same day. I mean, the FBI actually believed
Speaker 5: in that, As ridiculous as that sounds, but yeah, so
Speaker 5: I enjoyed the scenes. They were collaborative role plays, They
Speaker 5: were fictional stories, but they were detailed. They sounded detailed,
Speaker 5: they sounded very graphic, and the whole idea it's like,
Speaker 5: who can all right, Like this guy writes pretty well,
Speaker 5: let me see if I can outdo him? Could I
Speaker 5: say something more? Dvan? And that's how it kind of snowballed,
Speaker 5: but it never got out of control again. It never
Speaker 5: affected my real life. At this point, I was a
Speaker 5: police officer. I had just met Kathleen, who ended up
Speaker 5: becoming my wife, and this stuff's never ever bled into
Speaker 5: my real life. It never affected my ability to be
Speaker 5: a father or a husband. It was something I been
Speaker 5: on the side. It was something that I still kept private.
Speaker 5: The only people who knew were anonymous screen names on
Speaker 5: the internet. You know. I never shared my name where
Speaker 5: I was, from what I did for a living, and
Speaker 5: neither did anybody else. We were all just anonymous screen names,
Speaker 5: and I think that helped with you know, when when
Speaker 5: you're just a screen name on a computer, you can
Speaker 5: pretty much say whatever you want and you feel safe
Speaker 5: and no one's ever going to find out. But when
Speaker 5: it's Gill Valley, when my name's attached to it now
Speaker 5: that all has happened, and you know, I was forced
Speaker 5: to read a lot of the things that I wrote
Speaker 5: as part of the trial. And when I read a
Speaker 5: newspaper article, they always, you know, sign some really sick
Speaker 5: stuff that I wrote. And it's very tough for me
Speaker 5: to even read that, and I'm the one who wrote it,
Speaker 5: but just seeing my name next to it, it's a
Speaker 5: kind of a different element. I don't know if you
Speaker 5: guys could follow that, but I'm kind of rambling a bit,
Speaker 5: so I don't know if you want to.
Speaker 3: Yeah about let's talk about Kathleen, because your marriage indicates
Speaker 3: a lot of things. It helped to exonerate you in terms, uh,
Speaker 3: it was fodder for documentary. Again, I'm sort of rambling
Speaker 3: a little bit here, but let's talk about Kathleen and
Speaker 3: the marriage. What you thought at the time, obviously wanted
Speaker 3: to marry her, How was this relationship, what did it
Speaker 3: turn into in terms of what did you think this
Speaker 3: relationship was? And tell us about your your life married.
Speaker 5: We had a wonderful three years together and I try
Speaker 5: and hang on to the positive memory and there were
Speaker 5: a lot of them. You know, she was the woman.
Speaker 5: I really she was the love of my life. I
Speaker 5: married her. We were just we clicked from the first date.
Speaker 5: There was this chemistry there and we clicked right off
Speaker 5: the bat and it was just a really, really good thing.
Speaker 5: It was a great three years, and unfortunately it came
Speaker 5: to this where, you know, I don't want to get
Speaker 5: too much into what's going on now with the family
Speaker 5: court and our daughter, but know we had a very
Speaker 5: very good relationship. She got pregnant. There was a surprise.
Speaker 5: It was not something we planned that soon, but you know,
Speaker 5: we made it work. We moved into a very big
Speaker 5: apartment in Queens and just life was so good. But
Speaker 5: I was making enough money where she could be a
Speaker 5: stay at home mom, and that's what she wanted to do,
Speaker 5: and that's what worked for us. You know, she's hit
Speaker 5: at home with the with the baby. I worked, I
Speaker 5: did all the shopping. I did, and I never complained
Speaker 5: about it. It was something I enjoyed. You know, a man
Speaker 5: is supposed to provide for his family. You know. Then
Speaker 5: the arrest happened and the trial happened, and there was
Speaker 5: this whole portrayal out there that I was a deadbeat
Speaker 5: father and I didn't care about the family, and that's
Speaker 5: just that didn't do anything to push a very to
Speaker 5: convict me. But as a man with pride, it really
Speaker 5: hurt to listen to my wife, you know, tell this
Speaker 5: narrative of what life was like in our home that
Speaker 5: just was completely untrue. And I think I highlight certain
Speaker 5: things in the book and I provide, you know, text
Speaker 5: messages from when we were married, and anyone who reads
Speaker 5: those can't conclude that this was, you know, an unhappy situation.
Speaker 3: Well, let's go back and give her a chance to
Speaker 3: be fair as well, to see why she might be
Speaker 3: motivated to do the thing shit that she did. And
Speaker 3: you do provide that as well by saying, listen, I
Speaker 3: felt bad for her, and you at least allude to
Speaker 3: and the reader can read for themselves that this is
Speaker 3: a This was a very very aggressive prosecution. And obviously
Speaker 3: if you're exonerated, then somebody was Again you accuse them
Speaker 3: of prosecutor of prosecutorial misconduct, and you name this person.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that in a little bit, but let's
Speaker 3: talk about how this happens, because this isn't somebody went online,
Speaker 3: needless to say, they told you the FBI when they
Speaker 3: first spoke to you. And let's not get ahead in
Speaker 3: that that they had been under surveillance for eighteen months.
Speaker 3: But let's as you do know, and you do write
Speaker 3: in a book, tell us how this came to be.
Speaker 3: Your computer was in repair, you shared a computer, What
Speaker 3: were the sites that you were into at that time,
Speaker 3: and how was it that Kathleen stumbled onto this and
Speaker 3: what was her reaction?
Speaker 5: There was the same website. It was the Dark Fetish Network.
Speaker 5: That was really the what I did when when I
Speaker 5: went on the computer and when I looked at planography,
Speaker 5: that that was my go to. That was what I
Speaker 5: gravitated towards. So, as you mentioned, we shared a computer
Speaker 5: and one day I left my account open and she
Speaker 5: logged in and she saw some vanilla bondage website. I
Speaker 5: don't even know what it was, but it was just
Speaker 5: like pictures of women tied up. Nothing violent, nothing bloody
Speaker 5: or gory or nothing like the Dark Fetish Network. So
Speaker 5: she woke me up, and you know, she was like
Speaker 5: she actually felt bad that she stumbled upon it, like
Speaker 5: she was almost blaming herself. He's like, you know, like
Speaker 5: I didn't mean to I wasn't stooping. He was just
Speaker 5: there and I'm sorry. So she was the one feeling bad.
Speaker 5: I was feeling kind of embarrassed because, as I said earlier,
Speaker 5: I had never told anyone about my interest in pornography.
Speaker 5: So I was embarrassed. I was nervous, but we talked
Speaker 5: it through. I told I didn't give her a whole thing.
Speaker 5: I told her, listen, I've been you know, I'm kind
Speaker 5: of interested in bondage stuff. And then she came back with, well,
Speaker 5: let's see if we could spice up our sex life
Speaker 5: with this. So she we talked about maybe going into
Speaker 5: a sex shop and buying some toys. I never did
Speaker 5: because two weeks later she installed spywear. She thought I
Speaker 5: was having an affair because of the time I was
Speaker 5: spending late at night on the computer on the internet,
Speaker 5: so she thought I was having an affair, so she
Speaker 5: installed spywear, and then that's how she found a dark
Speaker 5: fetish network and then all chats and emails and obviously
Speaker 5: she was horrified, and I never I never blamed her
Speaker 5: for the way she reacted. I just imagine the person
Speaker 5: you're married to, you find out they're into this really
Speaker 5: violent stuff, and you know, centering the fantasies around people
Speaker 5: that you know in your real life, and in my case,
Speaker 5: I use pictures of her too. I use pictures of
Speaker 5: Kathleen as part of the story. So yeah, I never
Speaker 5: faulted her for how she reacted. Her first reaction despite
Speaker 5: all of that was Okay, I'm gonna get away for
Speaker 5: a while, but let's find a couple's therapists and work
Speaker 5: this out. You know, she wasn't giving up on the
Speaker 5: relationship for you know, so I figured, as bad as
Speaker 5: it was, that was about as good of a reaction
Speaker 5: as she could possibly have at you know, at some point,
Speaker 5: she went home to Nevada with the baby, and somebody
Speaker 5: talked her into going to law enforcement, and that's when
Speaker 5: everything came crashing down. That's where I never fault at
Speaker 5: her for how everything played out. I fault at the
Speaker 5: FBI for just being incredibly stupid and dishonest and you know,
Speaker 5: just completely turning her, convincing her that this was a
Speaker 5: real thing, that she was on the verge of being murdered,
Speaker 5: when it was so clear that that was the furthest
Speaker 5: thing from reality. So even today, I haven't spoken to
Speaker 5: Kathleen since all this happened, and we have family court
Speaker 5: stuff pending. But some days I get a little upset
Speaker 5: and I kind of redirect that anger toward the FBI
Speaker 5: and the prosecutors and the people who completely turned her
Speaker 5: because again her initial reaction was, Okay, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna get away, but this is something we're gonna work out.
Speaker 5: And you know, once law enforcement got involved in these
Speaker 5: absolute corrupt criminals, these stupid morons, you know, once they
Speaker 5: got involved, that was it. You know, everything was over.
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Speaker 3: Details Now, Brian, I wanted to ask you you talked
Speaker 3: when we when I first asked you that you initially
Speaker 3: tried to reach out to to Gil right away when
Speaker 3: you heard about this. Now, with your background, what did
Speaker 3: you see initially, even though the press was again very
Speaker 3: tabloid esque and running with the cannibal cop so very lurid,
Speaker 3: tabloid esque kind of coverage, it seemed, what did you
Speaker 3: see initially? And what did you see with him being
Speaker 3: denied bail? Which is quite unusual for anything outside of murder,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean initially all the press coverage was completely
Speaker 6: one sided, like the first few days and so like
Speaker 6: at that moment, I assumed I think everybody thought guilty
Speaker 6: because it was just they were just going at that
Speaker 6: point off of what the FBI gave, you know, gave
Speaker 6: the gave the press. But even when the press started
Speaker 6: coming out after a few weeks. I mean, the fact
Speaker 6: that he was on a I mean, he was on
Speaker 6: a fetish site, and I know that. I know that
Speaker 6: to a lot of people that probably doesn't mean a
Speaker 6: whole lot, but you know, well, what does that matter
Speaker 6: if he's saying these types of things. I mean, the
Speaker 6: place that he was actually talking to the other people
Speaker 6: was a fantasy site. He wasn't like on some sort
Speaker 6: of secret Gorilla dark web place where he was plotting
Speaker 6: with these people. It was a very That's what it
Speaker 6: was for. It was for people to have fantasies, to
Speaker 6: talk to people about their fantasies, and it just was.
Speaker 6: It was just fairly obvious to me and a lot
Speaker 6: of other people that I knew, because a lot of
Speaker 6: people I knew were talking about the case. A lot
Speaker 6: of people are talking about the case all over the world,
Speaker 6: and it just didn't seem right. It just didn't seem
Speaker 6: right that this maniac police officer was planning on kidnapping
Speaker 6: and eating all these women. And then obviously Gil already
Speaker 6: alluded to this, but then when any sort of facts
Speaker 6: started coming out, it was it was like, you know,
Speaker 6: he was going to take them in his in his
Speaker 6: white van to this mountain house, and these places didn't
Speaker 6: even exist. I mean, the farther it went, the more.
Speaker 6: It was just amazing that that he even was being
Speaker 6: prosecuted at all to me.
Speaker 5: And I was told by a couple of journalists, Aaron
Speaker 5: one of you know you mentioned Aaron Carter, a person
Speaker 5: who did the documentary. She was one of the people
Speaker 5: who told me if if if you were to black
Speaker 5: out the names of the court transcripts, you black out
Speaker 5: the names from the bail hearings and then the actual trial,
Speaker 5: you would think it's two completely different cases, because, as
Speaker 5: Brian just said, early on, there were things presented that
Speaker 5: just weren't true, and the trial happened, It's like, okay,
Speaker 5: so where is this you know, this GPS evidence that
Speaker 5: I was actually stalking someone in real life that never happened.
Speaker 5: Of course, you know, there wasn't no evidence because that
Speaker 5: stuff never happened. So uh, you know, Danny mentioned I
Speaker 5: was being denied bail and that was unusual, and I
Speaker 5: was denied bail really based on these lies that were
Speaker 5: being told in court. And eventually the facts come out,
Speaker 5: we get all the discovery turned over and it's like so,
Speaker 5: you know, like like nothing happens that the judge was
Speaker 5: lied to. You know, he sat there through bail hearings
Speaker 5: and he was lied to by these by these people
Speaker 5: and nothing happens. It's like, Okay, that's business as usual,
Speaker 5: so deal with it. Meanwhile, I'm denied bail arry confinement
Speaker 5: and it's like so what. But uh, you know, I
Speaker 5: never blamed the media coverage. I did read a lot
Speaker 5: of it when I was eventually released from prison, and
Speaker 5: you know, people think I hate the media, Like, No,
Speaker 5: the media was reporting what was being said in court.
Speaker 5: What was being said in court was that, you know,
Speaker 5: I had names and addresses of women in my computer
Speaker 5: that never happened. That they were reporting that that I
Speaker 5: had actually exchanged personal information with people that never happened.
Speaker 5: And you know this thing with the they had GPS
Speaker 5: evidence that was on a woman's block that never happened either.
Speaker 5: So I understand how people reacted early on, but it
Speaker 5: was based on a lot of misinformation, and that misinformation
Speaker 5: is still even to this day out there, which is
Speaker 5: why I was pushed to write the book, because I
Speaker 5: finally wanted my side out there, you know, and everything
Speaker 5: I say in this book is back up on court transcripts.
Speaker 5: I shared as much as I possibly could, even really
Speaker 5: embarrassing stuff. You know. Again, it's one thing to write
Speaker 5: about it. It's okay to put it on paper, but
Speaker 5: to talk about it, as I said before, it's still
Speaker 5: pretty difficult.
Speaker 3: But you know, gotta tell Brian, Brian there we've got
Speaker 3: to get to. I mean, you do the outline, like
Speaker 3: you say, there's certain things. There was a surveillance claim
Speaker 3: that was unfounded that they used in the bail hearing
Speaker 3: to deny you bail not more than once, the cell
Speaker 3: phone tower technology where they said they could pinpoint it
Speaker 3: you were on a street then later was five football
Speaker 3: fields away. So yeah, there, and we will talk about
Speaker 3: your solitary confinement. But let's talk about Brian, what you
Speaker 3: saw again. You know the difference between these fantasy sites.
Speaker 3: But the government did have something. The prosecution did have
Speaker 3: something enough to convict someone. So what did they use?
Speaker 3: What was there again? What evidence did they their theory
Speaker 3: was based on? Tell us what their theory was based on?
Speaker 3: What did they go on to be able to say,
Speaker 3: to qualify to say that he was going to kidnap
Speaker 3: these women with a co conspirator and this Mountain House.
Speaker 3: So explain this van Mountain House, this whole theory that
Speaker 3: the FBI has.
Speaker 6: I mean, I mean Gil might be able to explain
Speaker 6: that better, I mean to me. To me, it's just
Speaker 6: based on it's a Jerry tryon, It's based on mats hysteria.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just it's just you're sitting there, he's
Speaker 6: sitting there. You're saying all these horrible things that he's planning,
Speaker 6: so they must be true. I mean, there's no way
Speaker 6: that this could happen unless this person was actually doing
Speaker 6: some of those things. I mean, I can't think of
Speaker 6: any real evidence that they had. I mean, I I mean,
Speaker 6: it doesn't make any sense to me at all that
Speaker 6: he was that he was convicted. Gill. I mean, maybe
Speaker 6: you could speak to that better, because i mean, someone
Speaker 6: on the outside he was there. I mean, it's someone
Speaker 6: on the outside when I'm when I'm reading, you know,
Speaker 6: the facts, not just what I've gotten through Gill, but
Speaker 6: just the facts in general. I mean, there's there's really
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a very rare thing for men to
Speaker 6: be exonerated, as Gill was. So the exoneration was proof
Speaker 6: in itself that they didn't have any real evidence on them.
Speaker 5: There was absolutely no real evidence. The main piece of
Speaker 5: evidence where the chats and emails, and the chats and
Speaker 5: emails were replete with fictional information. We talked about the
Speaker 5: mountain house in the middle of nowhere, a white man,
Speaker 5: a human size dove, and all the stuff that never existed.
Speaker 5: But I was a police officer. I had a gun
Speaker 5: and handcuffs, and I never mentioned those in the chats
Speaker 5: because again I was a fictional character. I didn't share
Speaker 5: who I really was, and neither did anyone that I
Speaker 5: was chatting with. So they ended up they grouped. They
Speaker 5: took twenty four sets of communications me and twenty four
Speaker 5: different people. They determined that twenty one other sets of
Speaker 5: chats were fantasy, but three were real plans. If you
Speaker 5: look at and the judge highlighted this beautifully when he
Speaker 5: acquitted me and his written ruling, the chats have the
Speaker 5: same exact information in them. They had the same exact lies,
Speaker 5: the same exact plots, everything virtually identical. Plus the quote
Speaker 5: unquote real chats had a plot, and the FBI said
Speaker 5: they were This was a serious thing. On February twenty
Speaker 5: If I was gonna kidnap a woman in Manhattan. I
Speaker 5: was gonna kidnap one in Ohio, and I was gonna
Speaker 5: another one to Pakistan, all on the same day. And
Speaker 5: this is a trial, and they're saying that this is
Speaker 5: a real thing. I mean, we had people in the
Speaker 5: jury laughing, people in the audience laughing when when when
Speaker 5: that was revealed. But somehow I was still convicted. And
Speaker 5: I think, you know, Danny mentioned earlier the prosecutorium his conduct.
Speaker 5: The closing argument was just full of just disgusting. I mean,
Speaker 5: you know it. Basically, Number one, I didn't testify because
Speaker 5: the case ended up being so weak. I was like,
Speaker 5: what good is it going to do for me to testify.
Speaker 5: They're gonna hammer home all the chats again, you know,
Speaker 5: read all these chats and the emails. We had already
Speaker 5: gone through that, So why though up there and live
Speaker 5: that again. They use that against me. They said in
Speaker 5: the closing argument, you know, you have to factor in
Speaker 5: that you heard nothing from the defenses to you know,
Speaker 5: you heard no explanation why he's doing this, So that's
Speaker 5: not allowed. That's against my constitutional right not to testify.
Speaker 5: There's also this theme of basically, thank god they caught
Speaker 5: him when he did, because he might do something in
Speaker 5: the future. That's not what a trial is. The trial
Speaker 5: is based on what I already did in the past,
Speaker 5: not on what I might do in the future. Just
Speaker 5: hammering home, you know, just always mentioning that this is
Speaker 5: a police officer would a gun, This is a police
Speaker 5: officer would have gun, just over and over and over again,
Speaker 5: all the analogies they use. You know, they compared my
Speaker 5: case to an airplane hijacking, a bank robbery, to a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of stuff that the judge acquitted me based
Speaker 5: on lack of evidence. Okay, he said, there's no evidence
Speaker 5: to support the guilty verdict, so the ruling stops here.
Speaker 5: But he did feel compelled to mention the misconduct because
Speaker 5: it was so rampant and so egregious that toward the
Speaker 5: end of his ruling he did say, you know, I
Speaker 5: do feel compelled to mention the trial tactics of the prosecution.
Speaker 5: We're not exactly on the level here. So that's what
Speaker 5: got the jury to convict. But thank god, the judge
Speaker 5: had the wisdom encouraged to do the right thing and
Speaker 5: set that verdict aside. And as Brian mentioned earlier, the
Speaker 5: way I was acquitted. Just never happens for a trial
Speaker 5: judge to not only set the verdict aside, but dismissed
Speaker 5: a charge too. Normally a person would would would got
Speaker 5: a new trial, but he said, no, no new trial.
Speaker 5: The case is dismissed. So that never happens. That just
Speaker 5: shows what a travesty this prosecution was.
Speaker 3: Now let's talk about what's really important. And you are
Speaker 3: suing the government as you've been recommended. But part of
Speaker 3: this book, very powerful. Part of this book is a
Speaker 3: police officer going to prison. So yeah, why do you
Speaker 3: chuse solitary confinement for those people that might not be
Speaker 3: able to figure it out? And tell us just a
Speaker 3: little about this ordeal for you.
Speaker 5: Well, I was placed in solitary confinement for my protection.
Speaker 5: I was a police officer, so the prison was afraid
Speaker 5: that if I was in the you know, general population
Speaker 5: that was it was a safety issue because I was
Speaker 5: a cop and I was with a bunch of prisoners.
Speaker 5: So they put me in solitary confinement that was by myself,
Speaker 5: no one to talk to, you know, No, I couldn't
Speaker 5: make phone calls, I couldn't see my family. The only person,
Speaker 5: the only people I saw were my lawyers when they came. Uh,
Speaker 5: there's supposed to be paperwork for visitation for my family,
Speaker 5: and that stuff never worked out. It just always got
Speaker 5: lost or there was something fishy going on. And I
Speaker 5: don't really mentioned in the book because the prison guards
Speaker 5: for the most part, were very much in my corner
Speaker 5: and they they took care of me. They made sure
Speaker 5: I was there right. But the solitary confinement was a nightmare.
Speaker 5: And there were you know, there were days where I'd
Speaker 5: wake up and I'd have a dream, right, I had
Speaker 5: a dream where I was with Kathleen and my daughter.
Speaker 5: I was having a dream where I was back in
Speaker 5: a patrol car. And then to wake up and that cold, dirty,
Speaker 5: you know, filthy cell.
Speaker 7: Yah.
Speaker 5: Those were the hardest base. And then just no human
Speaker 5: contact at all for seven months. Finally, after seven months
Speaker 5: they gave me a chance in general population. But just
Speaker 5: the range of emotions on a daily basis, to go
Speaker 5: from anger to fear to worrying about my family. You know,
Speaker 5: my mom and dad, my brother, what are they dealing
Speaker 5: with on the outside. You know, I'm relatively shielded, I'm
Speaker 5: hidden from everything, but my family is on the outside
Speaker 5: dealing with neighbors, coworkers, and again I had no way
Speaker 5: to talk to them, so I had no idea how
Speaker 5: they were handling everything. So add that to it. Add
Speaker 5: my Kathleen, who I hadn't realized how much she was
Speaker 5: involved in the prosecution at that time. I was worried
Speaker 5: about her, my daughter, the case, I mean, just and
Speaker 5: then getting angry at the prosecutors who were lying. I
Speaker 5: you know, I know lying, but there's no one I
Speaker 5: can tell. There's no one who would listen to me
Speaker 5: at that point. So it was tough, and I still
Speaker 5: deal with issues today. You know, I can't sleep at
Speaker 5: my bedroom door closed because it makes me feel confined.
Speaker 5: It's just one of those things.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: Hopefully I can get over that one day, but right
Speaker 5: now I can't. I still have nightmares where uh, you know,
Speaker 5: I have nightmares where I'm back in prison, where I'm
Speaker 5: back in a cell, and I wake up sweating and panting,
Speaker 5: and it takes me a minute to realize that I'm home,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm in my own bed and it's over.
Speaker 5: So I'm acquitted and I'm exonerated. But there's still a
Speaker 5: lot of things I deal with, you know. It's just
Speaker 5: there's no getting rid of this at all. So yeah,
Speaker 5: you goddamn write them still in the government, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and you do have you file the complaint for
Speaker 3: prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 5: That's being worked on right now. I still have. You see,
Speaker 5: there's simultaneous things going on and I can't so I have.
Speaker 5: I have a lawsuit in against the sense right now.
Speaker 5: I'm waiting to hear back on that. I have a
Speaker 5: lawyer for that. I have a guy who out of
Speaker 5: contingency something was important enough to help me, so, you know,
Speaker 5: thank God for him. But while that's playing out, I'm
Speaker 5: also working on the complaint, as you said, the judicial
Speaker 5: misconduct against the main prosecutor in the case, who just blatantly,
Speaker 5: blatantly lied about many things, and you know, those were
Speaker 5: the main reasons I was an eyed bail and I
Speaker 5: just think it's right to file a formal complaint because
Speaker 5: I don't think she's she should get away. I don't
Speaker 5: think that woman should be within one hundred yards of
Speaker 5: the courtroom, to be honest, because I don't want what
Speaker 5: she did to me to happen to somebody else.
Speaker 3: Right now, you talk about the trial, we won't go
Speaker 3: into all of it. We'll leave it for the person
Speaker 3: to discover the leader. But obviously Kathleen, Kate, other people testify.
Speaker 3: Talk Let's talk about Kathleen and her testimony. What your
Speaker 3: reaction impression was, and how supportive was your family? Was
Speaker 3: your family behind you through this entire thing.
Speaker 5: My family never believed any of the chartists on the
Speaker 5: first day. They were behind me from day one. They
Speaker 5: didn't believe a second of it. So they were at
Speaker 5: every core appearance, they were at every fail hearing, they
Speaker 5: were at everything. They were there my mom and dad
Speaker 5: sitting together like they were married. That was kind of
Speaker 5: weird to see. But they never for a second, they
Speaker 5: had never one second that they believed that this could
Speaker 5: have possibly happened. Oh no, I mean they were completely
Speaker 5: supportive Kathleen. She took the stand the first day at
Speaker 5: the trial, and that was the first time I'd seen
Speaker 5: her since she left. So the trial started in late
Speaker 5: February and she left September twelfth, so that was five
Speaker 5: months or whatever. I can't do it. September to February,
Speaker 5: I hadn't seen her. So there she is, first time
Speaker 5: I'm seeing her, and she's the star witness. She's the
Speaker 5: first witness for the prosecutors, and I wasn't prepared for that.
Speaker 5: I was expecting her to just talk about what she
Speaker 5: found and how she found it. I wasn't expecting to
Speaker 5: be absolutely bulldozed by a narrative of what life was
Speaker 5: like in her home that was completely false, you know.
Speaker 5: So she made me out to be completely incompetent as
Speaker 5: a father, someone who was disinterested in the family. And
Speaker 5: again that didn't really you know, I can be a
Speaker 5: piece of garbage father and still be not guilty or
Speaker 5: the crime I was being charged with. But to sit
Speaker 5: there and listen to that stuff was extremely difficult when
Speaker 5: I mean me and her both know it's not true.
Speaker 5: So it was just it was a wave of emotions,
Speaker 5: you know, seeing her was tough. It was my actions
Speaker 5: that led to all this, you know, there was me
Speaker 5: taking part in these role plays that put us in
Speaker 5: that situation. But then again it wasn't a crime, so
Speaker 5: you know, just going back and forth, and then I
Speaker 5: mean we both were, both of us were crying hysterically
Speaker 5: through the whole thing, and the judge had to grant
Speaker 5: us like several recesses because we just were both so
Speaker 5: we both couldn't compose ourselves and it was just I
Speaker 5: don't know if that was the toughest part of the trial.
Speaker 5: I mean, the most embarrassing part of the trial were
Speaker 5: the two days or so where they just read line
Speaker 5: after line, you know, every goddamn thing I wrote in
Speaker 5: that website was read for like two straight days. So
Speaker 5: that was I mean, I wouldn't wish that level of
Speaker 5: embarrassment on my worst enemy, But I think emotionally, the
Speaker 5: toughest part was Kathleen's testimony.
Speaker 3: Now, tell us what Julia's and do you have a
Speaker 3: really good defender here? She's very passionate about your case.
Speaker 3: Was this a public defender? And tell us if it
Speaker 3: was in this Julia, in her in her team that
Speaker 3: were employed to represent you. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about their strategy and this defense team.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Julia Gatto, she was a public defender and she
Speaker 5: was on duty that day. So thank god they arrested
Speaker 5: me that day, not the next day. I would have
Speaker 5: ended up with somebody else. But yeah, she's a public defender.
Speaker 5: No money, you know, no charge. The police union never
Speaker 5: showed up, which I have a big problem with now
Speaker 5: now that this is all over, I have a major
Speaker 5: major problem with how the police unity and handle everything,
Speaker 5: but we can get there later. Julia, from the first
Speaker 5: day I met her, she didn't believe any She she
Speaker 5: got it right away. She said, like, these are really
Speaker 5: serious allegations, but I get that it's a game. It's
Speaker 5: like she kept comparing it to dungeons and dragons, you know,
Speaker 5: it's a role playing game. She understood it. And I
Speaker 5: saw her argue when at first bail hearing, and I said,
Speaker 5: you know what, I'm gonna be completely fine with her
Speaker 5: because she was you said the word passionate as she was.
Speaker 5: She was aggressive. She was defending me aggressively despite the
Speaker 5: horrific and graphic allegations. And I thought that it also
Speaker 5: helped that she was a female. You know, this is
Speaker 5: a case depicting fictional violence against women, and I had
Speaker 5: a woman defending me, So I thought that I was
Speaker 5: a big help too. But uh, you know, there there
Speaker 5: wasn't much strategy early on because we didn't have any
Speaker 5: evidence turned over yet. The prosecutors were speeling their nonsense
Speaker 5: at the bail hearings, and I was scribbling stuff down
Speaker 5: like okay, she's you know, the prosecutors saying this, Here's
Speaker 5: where I really was. Here's what really happened, and Julia would,
Speaker 5: you know, tell my side, but we had nothing to
Speaker 5: pack it up, so the judge is gonna believe the prosecutors. Eventually,
Speaker 5: when we got all the evidence turned over, Julia had
Speaker 5: like a new fire lit under earth because she realized that,
Speaker 5: like everything I said was the truth. And I think
Speaker 5: she believed me, you know, early on, but in the
Speaker 5: back of her mind she had to be thinking, well,
Speaker 5: there's got to be something because what is he you know,
Speaker 5: why is he arrested? Why is he here? There has
Speaker 5: to be something. But months later, when finally all my
Speaker 5: bail chances were over, you know, I had no more
Speaker 5: chance at bail, the prosecutor then turned everything over and
Speaker 5: you know, surprise, it was all nonsense. So Julia was
Speaker 5: I mean, she was angry. You know, she actually said
Speaker 5: that prosecutor belongs in prison, and you know, I don't
Speaker 5: want to speak for her, but apparently they don't talk anymore,
Speaker 5: those two, and I guess it's because of my case
Speaker 5: and how dishonest they were.
Speaker 3: Now, you talked about the police union not backing you up,
Speaker 3: and you'd say your family did, so you this has
Speaker 3: got to be the most trying and challenging time of
Speaker 3: your life, this twenty one months. Tell us as you do.
Speaker 3: It's interesting why you decided to go into general population.
Speaker 3: There are some risks obviously, that's why you were in
Speaker 3: solitary confinement. So tell us what happens in reality. A
Speaker 3: little bit of good news for you in there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean it reached a point where I
Speaker 5: just couldn't take being alone anymore. So requested a meeting
Speaker 5: with some of the prison officials and they were against it.
Speaker 5: I basically begged them to give me a chance. I said,
Speaker 5: I don't care if I get my ass kicked the
Speaker 5: first day. So they were hesitating, but they finally, you know,
Speaker 5: they gave me a shot. So they sent me to
Speaker 5: one of the housing units, and everyone knew who I was.
Speaker 5: It was pretty clear it was a high profile case.
Speaker 5: They get newspapers in prisons or you know, everyone followed
Speaker 5: the case and the papers and they all knew who
Speaker 5: I was. There was no hiding it. So my strategy,
Speaker 5: which is just key to myself, mind my own business,
Speaker 5: don't talk to anybody. Just you know, they had TVs
Speaker 5: and I hadn't. I hadn't watched TV in eight months,
Speaker 5: so there was a Yankee game on the I love baseball,
Speaker 5: so I got a chair out of my cell and
Speaker 5: I sent in for the TV and watched the Yankee
Speaker 5: game for the first time in forever. And in the
Speaker 5: first couple of days were pretty much I was kind
Speaker 5: of by myself, and then I was reading a book
Speaker 5: sitting on one of the tables, and another inmate sat
Speaker 5: next to me. He was having a lunch, and out
Speaker 5: of nowhere he goes, keep fighting, You're gonna win. So
Speaker 5: that was the first time someone really talked to me,
Speaker 5: and he kind of hinted that, yeah, you know, everybody
Speaker 5: here knows who you are, but everybody thinks the case
Speaker 5: is total bullshit, and you know, they don't believe any
Speaker 5: of the charges or whatever. So I think it was interesting.
Speaker 5: I think he must have been nominated somehow, maybe he
Speaker 5: drew the short strong like someone. They must have been like,
Speaker 5: all right, somebody's got to talk to this guy to
Speaker 5: see what he's really like, and it was him, And
Speaker 5: then he probably went back and told everyone like, guy,
Speaker 5: he's completely normal. And then after that more and more
Speaker 5: people started to talk to me. And you know, no
Speaker 5: one ever got in my face, no one was ever
Speaker 5: mean or violent or of course I never let my
Speaker 5: guard down. But I was able to survive there. And
Speaker 5: it was tough because I had been convicted and we
Speaker 5: had paperwork in to try and correct the injustice, but
Speaker 5: we didn't know when the judge was gonna rule, you know,
Speaker 5: so there was no date to look forward to. My
Speaker 5: dogs are you know, I'm sorry, so they there was
Speaker 5: just no you know, no end in sight. It was
Speaker 5: like today, it might be the day, or it might
Speaker 5: be tomorrow, or it might be two months from now.
Speaker 5: But while I was in general population, I had people
Speaker 5: there who were they could tell when I was having
Speaker 5: it especially bad day. You know, there were days that
Speaker 5: were hard on others. Father's Day was impossible, my daughter's
Speaker 5: birthday was you know, just I don't even want to
Speaker 5: talk about that. Eventually, I ended up getting a job
Speaker 5: too to help pass more time. I ended up working
Speaker 5: in the kitchen. That was the subject of a lot
Speaker 5: of jokes. I was back on the front page of
Speaker 5: the daily news because they found out that I worked
Speaker 5: in the kitchen, and you know, that became a big circus.
Speaker 5: But it helped pass the time. So again, nobody as
Speaker 5: a fourth police officer, no one ever ever got in
Speaker 5: my face, and that was something that, like, I relied
Speaker 5: on the support I had from inmates. You know, the
Speaker 5: police union and the cops were silent, but I had
Speaker 5: support from inmates in prison. Ghostigure.
Speaker 3: Interesting you talk about an LSIS for Brian. What did
Speaker 3: you think of when you were involved with the writing
Speaker 3: of this book the information that was provided in the
Speaker 3: trial with this six month old agent. Well, I'm not
Speaker 3: six months old, but six months as an agent, an
Speaker 3: FBI agent, this Walsh guy. What'd you think of that?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, it's, as I said before, it it's
Speaker 6: really amazing to me. I'm going to say almost the
Speaker 6: same thing, but it's amazing to me that it even
Speaker 6: reached a level of prosecution. There was just the agent
Speaker 6: in particular in the in the testimony, he just was
Speaker 6: not giving anything that you know, there was there was
Speaker 6: valid that that one would consider to be criminal activity,
Speaker 6: you know. So, I mean, I don't I don't know
Speaker 6: what else to state about it other than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it's just as funny as Gil writs in
Speaker 3: the book book.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, go ahead, I don't mean to cut you off.
Speaker 3: No, sorry. What I what I found humorous was the
Speaker 3: cross examination of this agent Walsh supposed to be a
Speaker 3: kidnapping expert. He was there. I mean they brought him in.
Speaker 3: The prosecution can be prepared or not prepared to put
Speaker 3: forward their case. As you say, a couple of big
Speaker 3: breaks you had and you and then you have this
Speaker 3: agent Walsh, and it's laughable. People are laughing in the
Speaker 3: at the trial. Over the cross examination. You think your
Speaker 3: your prosecution is vigorous. They make a lot of inroads
Speaker 3: and you figure we're not going to have you testify,
Speaker 3: which they thought they might have to do that. So
Speaker 3: tell us about how devastating was this to lose When
Speaker 3: you thought, I guess in your mind it was I'm
Speaker 3: ready to get out of here.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, we thought we were home. That cross examination
Speaker 5: was the turning point a trial. You thought, you know,
Speaker 5: that was I was home free. After that, there was
Speaker 5: no way Jerry was going to convict. It was during
Speaker 5: that cross cross examination that that whole thing with February
Speaker 5: twenty eighth and kidnapping three women on three different confidents
Speaker 5: came out. So, as you said, people were laughing and
Speaker 5: the judge even had this smirk on his face, and people,
Speaker 5: I mean the courtroom was packed every day there was
Speaker 5: standing room only. It was a huge courtroom, and there
Speaker 5: were a lot of media there. And you know, Julia,
Speaker 5: my lawyer, had you know, relationships with some of the
Speaker 5: people in the press, and after that cross examination, during
Speaker 5: the next break, people in the media were telling her,
Speaker 5: you guys got it, this is this case is a joke.
Speaker 5: There were articles written the next day. You know, the
Speaker 5: tabloids who had hammered me from the beginning, we're now saying.
Speaker 5: I remember one line in one of the papers was
Speaker 5: something like, did you hear that sound? That's the sound
Speaker 5: of the government's case brushing down the toilet, because like,
Speaker 5: this case is a complete joke, and they made the
Speaker 5: point that I made earlier. You know, that doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that people have to like me, or people have to
Speaker 5: be my friend or whatever. The question is, did I
Speaker 5: belong in prison? That's the only thing I care about
Speaker 5: people who read this book. They're gonna be they're parked
Speaker 5: in this book that are gonna make people uncomfortable because
Speaker 5: I'm so you know, I share a lot of really
Speaker 5: graphic stuff about my fantasies, and the thought process behind
Speaker 5: that is I want the people who hate me the
Speaker 5: most to still conclude that I didn't belong in prison.
Speaker 5: But back then, I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Who oh no, sorry, I was just gonna stay real
Speaker 6: quick guilt. But even now when we get I appreciate
Speaker 6: that you've actually read the book, Dan, and that you're
Speaker 6: asking that you're asking really relevant questions because even now,
Speaker 6: so much of the press that we get, and we
Speaker 6: have had a lot of good press. Note all the
Speaker 6: people want to talk about even now are Gill's fantasy.
Speaker 6: I mean, it doesn't even It's very rare that someone
Speaker 6: will even talk about whether they're criminal or not, or
Speaker 6: it's almost always just about the actual fantasy. It's like
Speaker 6: that's where people get stuck. It's just like they stay
Speaker 6: right there and like and just want to go there
Speaker 6: and never want to talk about the fact that a
Speaker 6: man literally spent almost two years of his life in
Speaker 6: prison they didn't do anything. You know, it's mind blowing, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So going back to the trial, you know, that
Speaker 5: was a turning point. We felt good. The government rested
Speaker 5: their case shortly after that. Our defense was pretty quick.
Speaker 5: It was over in a day. We had the guy,
Speaker 5: the founder of that website testify that yeah, like there
Speaker 5: are like a ton of people into cannibal fantasies. You know,
Speaker 5: like a lot of people on the website. Are there
Speaker 5: seventy five eighty thousand members of that website, which you know,
Speaker 5: no one else is being prosecuted except me. We had
Speaker 5: our paralegal. I mean, it was a really boring defense.
Speaker 5: Nothing I don't want to go so much into it.
Speaker 5: There's nothing substantial either way. It was just really quick
Speaker 5: and over in the day. And then they got to
Speaker 5: the closing arguments and I touched on before their closing
Speaker 5: argument was just completely improper, and Juliet got it all
Speaker 5: back with a really great closing argument. We felt really good.
Speaker 5: The jury came back after three days and I heard
Speaker 5: that guilty word, and it was just utter, complete, shocking devastation.
Speaker 5: I mean I was already rehearsing what I was going
Speaker 5: to say to the press. You know what. I was like,
Speaker 5: all right, I'm going home today and then I go
Speaker 5: and see my dog, you know my dog. Oh, I
Speaker 5: missed my little bulldog, Dudly. I was gonna go play
Speaker 5: at my dog, and I was gonna have a home
Speaker 5: cooked meal and catch up with everybody. And didn't just
Speaker 5: just just to hear guilty and you know that crime
Speaker 5: carried a possible life sentence, so I was facing life
Speaker 5: in prison. After that, I wasn't thinking about appeals or anything.
Speaker 5: I was just like shaking. I was shaking. Julia took
Speaker 5: my hand under the table as the verdict was being read,
Speaker 5: and after a guilty verdic came, she took my hand
Speaker 5: and she just like squeezed my hand under tail and
Speaker 5: they said there was a loud gasp in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: I didn't even hear it because I was so shocked.
Speaker 5: But I mean, the twenty people told me that when
Speaker 5: the jury said guilty, people were like completely shocked. So
Speaker 5: over the next couple of days I got some of
Speaker 5: that feedback. Julia actually told me that people from the
Speaker 5: US Attorney's office were calling her office and basically apologizing
Speaker 5: off the record, of course, but you know, that told
Speaker 5: me that maybe, by some miracle, there aren't honest people
Speaker 5: who work in that absolute cesspool of of of an
Speaker 5: office for prosecutors to be calling my lawyer and apologizing,
Speaker 5: you know. And Julian was getting emails from lawyers all
Speaker 5: over the country. So, I mean, the shock and devastation
Speaker 5: wore off pretty quickly, and I kind of refocused on
Speaker 5: the appeal and with all this feedback we were getting,
Speaker 5: I thought the chances were good. We all thought the
Speaker 5: chances were good at getting a new trial, if not
Speaker 5: for the lack of evidence, just based on the closing
Speaker 5: argument alone, I mean, that was reason enough to give
Speaker 5: a new trial. The judge took the extra step, thank god,
Speaker 5: and dismissed the case, and then the Court of Appeals
Speaker 5: upheld that. But it was a long you know, talking
Speaker 5: about it now for five minutes it's a lot different
Speaker 5: than living it for twenty one month.
Speaker 3: You capture that moment too, where you really didn't know
Speaker 3: what was going on. You waited the entire day the
Speaker 3: July pardon me, the June thirty first or June thirtieth,
Speaker 3: and so you were waiting. You got phone calls up
Speaker 3: to nine thirty. You had because you were in general population,
Speaker 3: you were able to send emails up to a certain time,
Speaker 3: tell us about that day and what you thought may
Speaker 3: happened that day, and what did actually you and how
Speaker 3: did you find out the next day and what did
Speaker 3: you find out?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so just to back up, it was a regular day.
Speaker 5: I went to work at the kitchen my you know,
Speaker 5: six in the morning to noon shift. I came back,
Speaker 5: as I did every day after work, I went to
Speaker 5: the computer and checked my emails, and I saw an
Speaker 5: email from Julia. And again this is completely out of
Speaker 5: nowhere that we weren't, you know, we didn't have a
Speaker 5: date to look forward to as so when the judge
Speaker 5: is gonna rule. But finally there's an email from Julia
Speaker 5: that she got word that the ruling was coming down today.
Speaker 5: So like, holy crap, it's gonna happen today. I'm really nervous,
Speaker 5: so I close the computer, I call her up on
Speaker 5: the phone, and we found out that Julia told me
Speaker 5: that the judge had requested pre trial services to be
Speaker 5: at a hearing the next morning. Now, pre trial services
Speaker 5: is something someone very unit that recommends whether or not
Speaker 5: a person gets bailed. So they actually, during the initial
Speaker 5: bail hearings, pre trial services actually recommend that that I
Speaker 5: that I get bail. But and and a judge nine
Speaker 5: times out of ten agrees with pre trial services. I
Speaker 5: was the one that the judge didn't agree. And the
Speaker 5: nightmyville anyway, so we were feeling that, okay, so that
Speaker 5: has to mean that tomorrow's a bail hearing and I'm
Speaker 5: getting a new trial right, and we all kind of
Speaker 5: were feeling that we were feeling advised. I mean, a
Speaker 5: new trial would have been a huge victory. So the
Speaker 5: whole day, you know, one o'clock, two o'clock, three, still
Speaker 5: no ruling. Then we get into the evening hours and
Speaker 5: still nothing. It's like seven o'clock and Julius said, they're
Speaker 5: staying at the office all night till they get word.
Speaker 5: But for me, everything shuts down at nine thirty. Computers, emails,
Speaker 5: and we're locked into ourselves for the rest of the night.
Speaker 5: So I gave her one final check at like nine
Speaker 5: twenty five. They said they asked the judges, you know,
Speaker 5: they called the judges chambers. They said, you know, please,
Speaker 5: we have a client in prison who's waiting. Can you
Speaker 5: give us anything? They said, no, not yet. So it
Speaker 5: was a sleepless night, to say the least. The ruling
Speaker 5: finally came down around eleven o'clock that night, and everybody
Speaker 5: knew that I was acquitted except me. I was still
Speaker 5: in the cell. I had no freaking clue. My family
Speaker 5: all knew, everybody knew. I didn't know until six o'clock
Speaker 5: the next morning, when they unlocked the cell and I
Speaker 5: checked my email, and you know, I had like nine
Speaker 5: emails from Julia and my family and you know, a
Speaker 5: couple of people in the media who I was starting
Speaker 5: to talk to. And that's when I found out that no,
Speaker 5: it wasn't a new trial. I was you know that
Speaker 5: you acquitted me. So I was going home. It was like, suddenly,
Speaker 5: you know, I didn't want to make a huge scene
Speaker 5: because they were I'm with a bunch of inmates, so like,
Speaker 5: on the one sense, I'm ecstatic and I want to scream,
Speaker 5: but I also don't want to make a big scene
Speaker 5: in front of everybody. So I had a couple of goodbyes.
Speaker 5: I woke either this one guy was sleeping, this guy
Speaker 5: who had become friends with I went into a cell.
Speaker 5: I was like, I pat them on his shoulder. I
Speaker 5: was like, hey, I'm going home. I got acquitted, and
Speaker 5: he's like, oh, nice, went back to sleep. He didn't.
Speaker 5: It was it was like that, like he was half
Speaker 5: asleep and I didn't make a big deal out of it.
Speaker 5: And then before he knew it, I was back in
Speaker 5: court and I was released. And this sounds really weird,
Speaker 5: but I almost wish I had just a day that
Speaker 5: I could have said goodbye to the people there who
Speaker 5: were so supportive of me, you know, people helped get
Speaker 5: me through every day. But everything was so unusual about
Speaker 5: this case, and even the way I was acquitted was unusual.
Speaker 5: So that was it. But the funny part was that
Speaker 5: I was like tossing and turning in a cell while
Speaker 5: everybody already knew that I was going home.
Speaker 3: You you talk and you describe that feeling. Must have
Speaker 3: been ecstatic to get out. Your parents met you, you
Speaker 3: hugged your defense team. Yeah, must have been a tense
Speaker 3: moment for you, obviously.
Speaker 5: Sure, just whole range of emotions, you know. And I
Speaker 5: remember going into the courtroom and just the look of
Speaker 5: stunned disbelief, you know, at the other table, the prosecutors,
Speaker 5: and just the excitement at our table. And the hearing
Speaker 5: started and the judge said, you know, as you know,
Speaker 5: I am quitting value. The chart is dismissed, and blah
Speaker 5: blah blah, blah blah. And the government said they were
Speaker 5: gonna appeal, so they appealed, So really like I was out,
Speaker 5: but the case is still pending. The government had a
Speaker 5: right to appeal, and the Court of Appeals could have
Speaker 5: theoretically reinstated the guilty verdict, and then I would have
Speaker 5: ended up back in prison. So we felt pretty good.
Speaker 5: The judge made such a good ruling one hundred and
Speaker 5: eighteen pages and just spelled it out completely as to
Speaker 5: why no rational journy could reach a guilty verdict, and
Speaker 5: so we felt pretty good. But there was always that
Speaker 5: doubt that, you know, I could theoretically one day end
Speaker 5: up back in prison, So that was tough to deal
Speaker 5: with a little bit. But in the end we won everything.
Speaker 5: So now I'm completely exonerated, completely free. It's never going
Speaker 5: back to court. It's over, like I can close the
Speaker 5: book on that. And but like I said earlier, I'm
Speaker 5: still dealing with a lot of issues. It's not like,
Speaker 5: you know, life goes on happily ever after. It's far
Speaker 5: from it.
Speaker 3: In fact, Brian, I wanted to ask you what this
Speaker 3: process was like, what really you your role in this
Speaker 3: was primarily other than I mean, it's a co author,
Speaker 3: But tell us a little bit more about your role
Speaker 3: in this and your experience writing this with Gil. Sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, first of all, I was I always every time
Speaker 6: I Bill talks, I always think about how brave Gil is,
Speaker 6: and he's an extremely brave guy. So so right when
Speaker 6: we first, as Gil said, we did click. We did
Speaker 6: click right away. We've hung out more than a couple times,
Speaker 6: like since, you know, socially, even since since the situation.
Speaker 6: We enjoy each other, We get each other. But he's
Speaker 6: a very, very brave guy, and he's also a very
Speaker 6: good writer. So to be honest, it was much easier.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was much easier than I thought it
Speaker 6: was going to be. Sometimes when you get into these
Speaker 6: types of situations, you don't really know as a writer,
Speaker 6: you don't really know what you're getting yourself, what you're
Speaker 6: getting yourself into. And he was more than open to
Speaker 6: to uh, to writing and talking about anything. Initially, kind
Speaker 6: of what we did was I would I would probe
Speaker 6: different areas, ask him different questions. He would write a
Speaker 6: big section, then I would write a section, and we
Speaker 6: kind of got through it like that. And then when
Speaker 6: we got to the court aspect, pretty much almost everything
Speaker 6: post arrest is almost is almost just him and and
Speaker 6: what I did was was this kind of like firm
Speaker 6: it up, move things around a bit. But I mean,
Speaker 6: he he was great to work with him, and it
Speaker 6: was a very it was a very good process. I
Speaker 6: know you said you said in an email that you
Speaker 6: that you liked the book, and and I appreciate that
Speaker 6: a lot of people have liked the book. It's really
Speaker 6: it's really getting a lot of positive response. And when
Speaker 6: you have a situation where you're where you're writing a
Speaker 6: book with somebody that it was arrested for really really
Speaker 6: dark fetishes and fantasies, I think it's just the testament
Speaker 6: to the job that Geil did with my help. But
Speaker 6: the job that we did that did people like it
Speaker 6: as much as they do, So it was a great
Speaker 6: experience of me. I've really started working with Gil.
Speaker 5: It was originally going to be a ghostwriter situation where
Speaker 5: Brian was going to write the book in my voice,
Speaker 5: but he gave me a shot. And you know, he
Speaker 5: described early on in the process where he would ask
Speaker 5: a bunch of questions and I would get answers and
Speaker 5: he would craft that into a chapter, and I was
Speaker 5: just it blew my mind how much it sounded exactly
Speaker 5: like me. So later on I took a stab at
Speaker 5: one of the chapters, like sometime when I was arrested.
Speaker 5: So I emailed to Brian. He's like, dude, this is
Speaker 5: really good keep going. So I wrote the next chapter,
Speaker 5: and I its like, don't stop, man, just keep just
Speaker 5: keep going, keep rolling with it. And I ended up
Speaker 5: writing the rest of the book. And he, you know,
Speaker 5: did the all the fine tuning with grammar and punctuation
Speaker 5: and all that stuff. I mean, I was pretty good
Speaker 5: with a lot of it.
Speaker 6: But he define Gil rot Gil wrote eighty percent of
Speaker 6: the book without a doubt, maybe even eighty five, you know,
Speaker 6: and I basically was just you know, making it, making
Speaker 6: it better. I mean, but but it was still it's
Speaker 6: still mostly uh still mostly Gill. And like I said,
Speaker 6: I mean, I think you've done some writing down, but
Speaker 6: a lot of times, a lot of times you get
Speaker 6: in a situation and you're just like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: like what did I get myself into. It was the
Speaker 6: exact opposite with Gail. It was just we we started
Speaker 6: writing this, believe it or not, in like in July,
Speaker 6: like last July, and like we were we were, and
Speaker 6: we even had a period where we slowed down because
Speaker 6: we had a we had a literary agent at one point,
Speaker 6: and we were we were going through a process of
Speaker 6: tweaking it and fine tuning it, and we ended up
Speaker 6: that didn't end up working out for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 6: but regardless, and we even slowed down. I mean, the
Speaker 6: actual time that we probably wrote the book was probably
Speaker 6: about I don't know, man, it was probably like three months,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe maybe maybe yeah, maybe not even that long.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's amazing how quick it went. I mean that
Speaker 5: was the other thing. I'm glad Brian growing up. I
Speaker 5: want to definitely want to mention how quick I mean,
Speaker 5: this is like lightning quick from the moment we when
Speaker 5: I got Brian's email to the date of the release.
Speaker 6: It was like, yeah, which is you know, I almost
Speaker 6: unheard of Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very very quick. The other thing you touch
Speaker 3: in this book, Gil and and Brian is while you
Speaker 3: were waiting this decision from the courts, you thought, again,
Speaker 3: just very much like this book, it's good and essential
Speaker 3: that you want the story to come out, the real story.
Speaker 3: And tell us a little bit about a couple people
Speaker 3: you had, Daniel Engbar Engber basically was on your side,
Speaker 3: and correspond with him and also Aaron Carr, Aaron Lee Carr,
Speaker 3: the director of Cannibal Cop. So tell us briefly what
Speaker 3: that was, what you attempted to do and why you
Speaker 3: decided to do a documentary and what you thought of
Speaker 3: that end result in that short.
Speaker 5: So Dan Engberg is a columnist at Slate magazine, and
Speaker 5: as far as I know, he was the first person
Speaker 5: to publicly challenge what was going on. As we talked
Speaker 5: about earlier, the narrative was so one sided, but he
Speaker 5: was the first one to kind of publicly question what
Speaker 5: did he actually do here? What really happened. So my
Speaker 5: lawyers sent me that article when I was in solitary confinement,
Speaker 5: and that, you know, obviously made me feel pretty good.
Speaker 5: So he ended up writing to me directly at some
Speaker 5: point after the conviction, and once I got the general population,
Speaker 5: I got his email addressed and we started communicating the email,
Speaker 5: and he was one guy who I trusted. He was
Speaker 5: like publicly in my corner, and he was really disgusted
Speaker 5: with the trial and and really was upset with the verdict.
Speaker 5: So one day we're emailing and he mentioned Aaron Lee Carr,
Speaker 5: who's a documentary filmmaker, and she was also extremely upset
Speaker 5: with the trial, and she was disappointed that I was
Speaker 5: in prison and I should never have been convicted. So
Speaker 5: he said that she wanted to talk to me, and
Speaker 5: she was interested in doing a documentary for HBO. This
Speaker 5: was still when I was in prison. We had the
Speaker 5: paperwork and you know, for the judge to overturn avert
Speaker 5: and I thought, well, hell, you know, let's put some
Speaker 5: pressure on the judge on the court system. This girl
Speaker 5: wants to do a documentary about how I'm innocent. She's
Speaker 5: gonna question the prosecution here, Like, let's do it. So
Speaker 5: we communicated through email. My lawyers weren't really thrilled about it,
Speaker 5: but Aaron spoke with my lawyers too, and they seem
Speaker 5: to acknowledge at least that she seems different. She seems
Speaker 5: like she gets We think she'll do a good job.
Speaker 5: While Aaron and I were talking, she even visited me
Speaker 5: in prison with my family. When my visits finally happened,
Speaker 5: she would come and visit with my family, and I
Speaker 5: just completely trusted her. She seemed to really get it.
Speaker 5: She was in my corner. She was like, I believe
Speaker 5: in your exoneration and all that stuff. She said all
Speaker 5: the right things. I mean, how could you not want
Speaker 5: to work with this girl. Furthermore, her father was a
Speaker 5: prominent New York Times journalist David Carr he written the book,
Speaker 5: and my brother ordered the book for me. It was
Speaker 5: called A Knight of the Gun. So I read that
Speaker 5: when I was in prison, and it was a story
Speaker 5: of a man who was just completely a wreck. He
Speaker 5: had actually he was arrested tenoral at the times, he
Speaker 5: had actually beaten women. He was a severe drug addict,
Speaker 5: and he was in and out of the system, and
Speaker 5: finally he got help and turned his life around. And
Speaker 5: now he like he was just well respected and loved
Speaker 5: by everybody. This journalist to people like this is real
Speaker 5: human story of redemption. So I kind of paralleled my
Speaker 5: situation with that. So when I get out of prison,
Speaker 5: I want to be like this guy. I want to
Speaker 5: rebuild my life better. And so that further pushed me.
Speaker 5: You know, here's this girl, her father lived through this situation,
Speaker 5: so surely, I mean, she gets what's going on here
Speaker 5: better than anybody. It was during the time that I
Speaker 5: was talking to Aaron that the judge acquitted me. So
Speaker 5: then things really move forward with the documentary that you know,
Speaker 5: HBO was at my house a couple of times a week,
Speaker 5: just filming and talking and you know, getting a piece
Speaker 5: of what life was like. And you know, for me,
Speaker 5: while the case was still pending and my lawyers turned
Speaker 5: over a whole bunch of documents to her. There was
Speaker 5: there were letters written by the prosecutors to the judge
Speaker 5: as part of my bail hearings. You know, these letters
Speaker 5: that said Valley exchange real personal information over the Internet.
Speaker 5: All that stuff that wasn't true. And Aaron was like
Speaker 5: flabbergasted by all this. She was like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: this is like, this is such an injustice and she said,
Speaker 5: I mean, all I wanted was an accurate representation of
Speaker 5: what happened. She promised me that, and I was really
Speaker 5: excited about the documentary and eventually it came out and
Speaker 5: I saw a special screening with my lawyers a week
Speaker 5: before the premiere. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival,
Speaker 5: which is like a huge deal and I was supposed
Speaker 5: to go. I had, you know, they gave me ten tickets,
Speaker 5: me and family friends and we were all going to go.
Speaker 5: But I saw pre screening and I was like just
Speaker 5: completely railroaded and completely disappointed by it. The documentary was
Speaker 5: basically did what the government did where they cherry picks
Speaker 5: things and you know the case for the judge to
Speaker 5: do what he did. It had to be one hundred
Speaker 5: percent in my favorite to you know, zero percent, but
Speaker 5: Aaron made it fifty to fifty where and she said
Speaker 5: that these are her own words. After the thing air
Speaker 5: at Tribeca, she was doing a lot of interviews and
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, the narrative from Aaron was she
Speaker 5: wanted to do a documentary when half the people would
Speaker 5: walk out of there saying I think Gil would have
Speaker 5: done something, and the other half would say, I don't
Speaker 5: think he would have done something. And that's not at
Speaker 5: all what I signed up for. It wouldn't make sense
Speaker 5: for me to sign up for that with the case
Speaker 5: still pending, right, So she was just she played me.
Speaker 5: She played me, my family, my lawyers, and I didn't
Speaker 5: appreciate that. And to compound it, she was like spewing
Speaker 5: all this crap to the media and it was just
Speaker 5: a really bad situation. It was like I was afraid
Speaker 5: to show my face in public again. You know, I was,
Speaker 5: I was in a good spot, I was dating a girl,
Speaker 5: I was these things were finally picking up for me again,
Speaker 5: and I just completely shut down for about a month
Speaker 5: after that thing came out. It was is such a
Speaker 5: shock to the system and just a complete disappointment, and
Speaker 5: she got all this praise. People were like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: she got the Cannibal cop. How did she do it?
Speaker 5: How did she get to participate? And I mean she
Speaker 5: got my participation by selling me a completely false bill
Speaker 5: of goods, And I wanted to make sure that I
Speaker 5: told part of that story in the book. I mean,
Speaker 5: she has no integrity at all, and HBO has even
Speaker 5: less integrity for knowing what she did and then continuing
Speaker 5: to hire her to do more projects. I have just
Speaker 5: a major problem with that.
Speaker 3: What has been the response and tell us when this
Speaker 3: book came out, and what has been the response from
Speaker 3: people that you care about with this book?
Speaker 5: Well, not many people from my family have read it
Speaker 5: because it's going to take them back to those really
Speaker 5: bad days, you know. So I understand that my mother
Speaker 5: read it. My mother is probably the strongest person in
Speaker 5: my family. She was kind of the face of our
Speaker 5: family when all this was going on. So she read
Speaker 5: it and she even said like her heart was pounding
Speaker 5: like out of her chest when she was reading about
Speaker 5: my time in prison. And you know, I don't think
Speaker 5: I was ever completely forthright and honest with them. About
Speaker 5: how tough it was in prison, and I don't think
Speaker 5: they were ever honest with me about how tough it
Speaker 5: was on the outside while all this was going on.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of something we haven't talked about, but
Speaker 5: the book, you know, I talked in the book how
Speaker 5: tough it was. So it was very difficult for my
Speaker 5: mom to get through that stuff, but she read it
Speaker 5: and she loved it. And I've had friends who, you know,
Speaker 5: acquaintances who I knew in high school, who I didn't
Speaker 5: really talk too much after I graduated, they reached out
Speaker 5: to me on social media, like, you know, I'm sorry
Speaker 5: this happened, and they loved the book, and it just
Speaker 5: people are so happy that my side of the story
Speaker 5: is finally out there, and as far as like strangers
Speaker 5: and people just leaving reviews on Amazon, I was a
Speaker 5: little worried at that the book was too graphic and
Speaker 5: people were going to be completely put off by you know,
Speaker 5: the prologue, for instance, is very graphic, and it's one
Speaker 5: of the fantasy scenes and it's very detailed, and it
Speaker 5: was something that I was I was a little concerned
Speaker 5: that people might not be able to get past that stuff,
Speaker 5: and just kind of shut down and you know, want
Speaker 5: to curse me out and things like that. But the
Speaker 5: response has been overwhelmingly positive and people who have read
Speaker 5: the book, and that's something that just makes me so
Speaker 5: happy as an author. Where people say it's a it's
Speaker 5: gripping and they couldn't put the book down, but it's
Speaker 5: also an easy read, and that's something I wanted to do.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't want a complicated book. I wanted
Speaker 5: something people could read fairly easily as far as the
Speaker 5: you know, the writing style. I mean again, there's very
Speaker 5: graphic stuff, challenging for some people to get through, I'm sure,
Speaker 5: but they get through it and they reached the right conclusion.
Speaker 5: So so far, I'm just very happy with how it's
Speaker 5: worked out, and I have no regrets at all in
Speaker 5: doing this. I know it's kind of bringing everything back
Speaker 5: to life again, but I'm at a point now mentally
Speaker 5: where I've sort of, i mean, I kind of have
Speaker 5: no choice. I have to learn to live with this
Speaker 5: and in a sense sort of embrace it, and it's
Speaker 5: just part of me now. This whole cannibal cop thing
Speaker 5: is something I'm never gonna shake. So rather than hide
Speaker 5: from it, I've just learned to live with it and
Speaker 5: you know, laugh about it when I can, and you know,
Speaker 5: not that everything is always I'm okay with people joking
Speaker 5: around because I'd rather people make fun of me and
Speaker 5: joke around and be afraid. But there's a part of
Speaker 5: this case that's just so heartbreaking. There's a five year
Speaker 5: old girl out there, my daughter who has no idea
Speaker 5: who her father is, and my family who has been
Speaker 5: completely shut out of her life too, and they did
Speaker 5: nothing at all to deserve that. And that's the real
Speaker 5: heartbreaking part of the case that after reading the book,
Speaker 5: people are finally starting to get to you know, where
Speaker 5: I'm not some punchline. You know, I'm a human being too,
Speaker 5: I'm a father. And that's been a welcome response where
Speaker 5: people have left a review on Amazon where like they're
Speaker 5: talking to me directly and they're saying, I hope you
Speaker 5: reunite with your daughter soon, and that's just so touching
Speaker 5: and emotional. It just feels good that after all this time,
Speaker 5: people are finally you know, getting it.
Speaker 3: This must be a feather in your cap as well, Brian,
Speaker 3: to do an important book with an important subject, and
Speaker 3: do you think this is going to be again one
Speaker 3: of those cases that they're going to a reference, and
Speaker 3: this book, as an example of that, will be part
Speaker 3: of that reference.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it definitely was definitely
Speaker 6: a book that I was really excited to work on,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean we both kind of took a
Speaker 6: chance on each other a bit. You know, I've add
Speaker 6: some books out with some relatively well known folks, but
Speaker 6: this was something I was really really excited to do.
Speaker 6: And I think it's the type of book that'll be around.
Speaker 6: I think it'll be making sales for a long time.
Speaker 6: I think it's just that kind of a book that
Speaker 6: someone's going to be like, you know, not just whatever
Speaker 6: happened with that case, but it is an important case,
Speaker 6: and I think I think people will discover it, people
Speaker 6: will write about it, It'll get noticed by different groups
Speaker 6: of people for a long time. So it's been a
Speaker 6: very positive experience for me as well.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you both Gil Valley and Ryan
Speaker 3: Whitney for coming on and talking about this. Is there
Speaker 3: a Facebook page and if people would want to contact
Speaker 3: wanted you to talk about this project or comments, tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about how people might find out
Speaker 3: where you are and.
Speaker 5: Some of your work well for me, I'm very active
Speaker 5: on social media, you know, like I said, I'm not
Speaker 5: hiding for any of this, So I'm on Twitter and
Speaker 5: a lot of people have found me that way. Readers
Speaker 5: of a book have reached out to me and you know,
Speaker 5: wished me the best and have offered all kinds of encouragement.
Speaker 5: So I don't have a personal website. I'm just on Twitter.
Speaker 5: My handle is Gill Valley three. It's very simple, so
Speaker 5: people can feel free to reach out to me. I'm
Speaker 5: there and I welcome it. You know. I love talking
Speaker 5: and interacting with people who read the book or have
Speaker 5: questions about I'm very open. It's one thing that I
Speaker 5: think Brian realized is I literally answer every question. So
Speaker 5: it's all part of moving on and accepting this part
Speaker 5: of my life and just not hiding from anything, you know.
Speaker 5: And it's worked out very well. So people should feel
Speaker 5: free to reach out.
Speaker 6: And oh yeah, I was just going to say, I
Speaker 6: have a website brianwhitneyauthor dot com and I'm also on
Speaker 6: Facebook and Dan again, thanks for having us on. I
Speaker 6: really appreciate you having read the book and I'm asking
Speaker 6: insightful questions that you've asked.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it. Well.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you very much, guys, Gil and
Speaker 3: Brian for coming on and talking about this. I thoroughly
Speaker 3: enjoyed this interview, and like I said, I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: the book. I really enjoyed the idea that I had
Speaker 3: preconceived ideas before I read this book. And you guys
Speaker 3: do an admirable job of stating the case and exploring
Speaker 3: this entire story and really bringing it home to understand
Speaker 3: the plight that Gil Valley went through.
Speaker 5: This.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that again you're not not taking responsibility for
Speaker 3: what happened, but certainly I can agree, and I think
Speaker 3: everyone can agree that it surely didn't deserve a day
Speaker 3: in prison. So I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you very much. Again, Like Brian said, I
Speaker 5: think you're one of the first people who have actually
Speaker 5: read the book to interview us.
Speaker 6: So it is not money yet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's strange. Really appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 5: do that and ask some very good, insightful questions. So thanks, Dan,
Speaker 5: really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much, gentlemen, and you guys have
Speaker 3: a great night and all the best of luck to
Speaker 3: you with us and talk to you again soon, thank you,
Speaker 3: good night, thank you, okay.
Speaker 5: Thanks very much. Bye.