NEW YORK (AP) — A historic New York City courthouse got a facelift just in time for the trial of a police officer accused of plotting to kill and eat women.
The trial of 28-year-old Officer Gilberto Valle (VAL'-ee) will be the first major one inside the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse since it reopened in January after a six-year refurbishing. The building first opened in 1936.
The trial will occur in the same courtroom where homemaking maven Martha Stewart was convicted in 2004 of lying about a stock sale.
The government says Valle conspired to kidnap women. His lawyers say he merely engaged in sexual fantasies on the Internet.
The trial returns the spotlight to the courthouse where Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried as traitors and where numerous terrorism trials occurred in the 1990s.
