NEW YORK (MCT) – A federal jury in Manhattan on Tuesday convicted police officer Gilberto Valle of conspiracy to kidnap and eat women, stunning Valle, his family and a defense team that relentlessly argued he had engaged only in crude online role-playing fantasies.

Six-year New York Police Department veteran Valle, 28, was charged with plotting in Internet chats with three men he met on a kinky-sex website to abduct, abuse and cannibalize women he knew, including his wife, and with misusing a police database. Jailed since his arrest, he will face up to life in prison at his sentencing June 19.

He was fired by the police department Tuesday.