School Librarian Sentenced For Rape Plot Tied To 'Cannibal Cop'

TRIBECA, NY — A former librarian at Stuyvesant High School was sentenced to prison on Monday for his plans to kidnap, torture and rape women and children, prosecutors said.

Christopher Asch was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for his gruesome plots to kidnap and abuse women with other men. Asch's perverted emails and online chats planning the abductions were first uncovered by federal agents investigating the so-called "cannibal cop," the former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle.

Valle was arrested and later convicted of kidnapping after investigators uncovered the former officer's extensive online fantasies about abducting, raping and eating women. His conviction was overturned within two years, after a judge ruled that Valle's online chats were more likely "fantasy role-play" and not actual plans.

Prosecutors said that Asch went further than Valle in his sadistic plans. Asch and two people he met online, Richard Meltz and Michael Van Hise, planned via email and instant messaging to kidnap, rape and kill Van Hise's wife, sister-in-law and her children. Federal agents first began monitoring Van Hise, and later Meltz and Asch, after uncovering online chats between Van Hise and the "cannibal cop" Valle in which the two discussed their fantasies.

Asch, Meltz and Van Hise strategized about kidnaping and torturing Van Hise's family between 2011 and 2012, before federal agents began investigating the three men.

Asch and Meltz also also fantasized and abducting and raping another woman, who unbeknownst to them was an undercover agent participating in a sting operation. Asch told a second undercover agent about his extensive plans to torture the woman, including a bag of materials he purchased to torture her. Asch's supplies included a meat hammer, a dental retractor, a leg spreader and a stun gun, according to prosecutors.

Meltz and Asch were arrested in 2013.

Meltz was previously sentenced to 10 years in prison. Van Hise is awaiting sentencing.

"Christopher Asch, a former New York City public school librarian, received a significant prison term for his involvement in two sadistic kidnapping, rape, and murder conspiracies," Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, said in a statement.

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