NEW YORK (AP) — The former police chief at a Massachusetts Veterans Administration medical center has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in a kidnap-murder case that resulted from the prosecution of a cannibalism case against a New York City police officer.

Richard Meltz was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan. U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe said the 66-year-old ex-police chief at the Bedford, Massachusetts, Veterans Administration medical center went far beyond Internet fantasy chats when he conversed with two others who were recently convicted at trial in the case.

Meltz faced a maximum of 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two charges of conspiracy. He admitted assisting in the planned kidnapping of adult relatives of a New Jersey man and of a woman who was actually an undercover FBI agent.