NEW YORK — A city police officer was charged Thursday with leading a ghoulish double life by using a law enforcement database and fetish chat rooms to dream up a plot to torture women and then cook and eat their body parts.

Gilberto Valle, 28, left a trail of e-mails, instant messages, and computer files detailing the bizarre cannibalism scheme, according to a criminal complaint, which identified two women as Victim 1 and Victim 2.