Valle's fantasies started with 'The Mask'

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NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Alleged "Cannibal Cop" Gilberto Valle got into sexual deviancy after seeing Cameron Diaz in the 1994 film "The Mask," his lawyer says.

Valle, 28, of New York is accused of plotting to kidnap women to slowly cook and eat.

He has admitted that he gets aroused "when imagining women being abducted and bound by others," and has now told psychiatrist Paul Dietz that those feelings started when he saw "The Mask" when he was younger, the New York Post reported.

In the film, which stars Jim Carrey, Diaz' character is abducted, then later shown bound by her arms and feet to a coconut tree inside a casino with a bomb at her feet.

Valle's "pattern of arousal appears to have originated with a scene in the movie, 'The Mask,' in which Cameron Diaz pretends to be abducted and bound," Valle defense lawyer Julia Gatto wrote in a letter to Manhattan federal Judge Paul Gardephe.

"Mr. Valle reported that since early adolescence, he has experienced erotic arousal when imagining naked women or when imagining women abducted and bound by others," Gatto wrote.

Valle, a married dad and six-year NYPD veteran, was arrested in October on charges of planning to kidnap, rape, cook and eat women with conspirators he met through an online fetish website, the New York Daily News reported.

Gatto said Dietz is prepared to testify that Valle never planned to carry out these fantasies, Gatto said.