A New York City cop has been arrested in a murder-for-hire plot aimed at her ex-husband and her boyfriend’s daughter, federal authorities announced Friday.
Valerie Cincinelli, 34, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder after allegedly trying to enlist her boyfriend to hire a hit man to kill his “minor daughter” and her former spouse, Isaiah Carvalho Jr. She was immediately suspended without pay following her arrest Friday by the FBI and the department’s internal affairs unit, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Beast.
Cincinelli’s boyfriend will not be charged and is cooperating with investigators, the spokesperson said.
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According to a complaint filed in U.S District Court in the Eastern District of New York, Cincinelli “requested” that her boyfriend “hire a hit man to murder” the pair, to which he responded that he “knew someone who would do it for $7,000.” On February 17, Cincincelli allegedly withdrew the cash and converted it into “gold coins.”
On May 8, the complaint alleges, her boyfriend expressed concern over the two murders happening in the same weekend, so Cincinelli advised him to “have the hit man kill [the daughter] over the weekend and then wait a week or a month to kill [her ex-husband].” She allegedly added that they would be murdered in “separate locations” since the daughter “was in New Jersey during the week and in New York on the weekends.”
“Cincinelli further stated that, if questioned about the murders, she would have nothing to worry about because she would be at home at the time of the murders,” the complaint alleges.
In another conversation, Cincinelli asked her boyfriend how the “hitman was going to carry out the murders” and discussed their respective alibis if they were “questioned by the police,” the complaint states.
While discussing how the hitman did not want to murder the girl near her school, Cincinelli allegedly responded: “[r]un her the fuck over, how about that.”
It was not immediately clear why Cincinelli would allegedly target the girl. Investigators have also not announced a motive in the alleged plot against her ex-husband.
Prosecutors allege that on Friday, at the direction of FBI agents, Cincinelli was notified by the Suffolk County police that they were “investigating the death” of her ex-husband, even though he was not actually dead. The FBI then sent a photograph posing as the hitman to the boyfriend, “which included a photograph of the alleged murder scene,” according to the complaint.
“In response, the defendant Cincinelli instructed [the boyfriend] that they needed to delete text messages and photographs from their respective cell phones,” the complaint states. She was arrested shortly after.
Court records show Carvalho Jr., filed for divorce last year in Nassau County Supreme Court, and a trial date has been set for June. The couple shares one child.
“You gotta give me some time. I can’t talk about this right now,” he told The New York Post on Friday. Carvalho did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
His divorce lawyer, Matthew Weiss, told The Daily Beast his client is “extremely grateful for the diligent effort of law enforcement.”
“He’s doing alright,” Weiss said. “He’s obviously shaken up but he’s doing okay, despite the circumstances.”
The domestic-violence officer, who joined the NYPD in 2007, was placed on a modified assignment to monitor cameras in public housing after Nassau County Police responded to her home for an unrelated domestic incident involving her ex-husband two years ago. The incident prompted an Internal Affairs investigation.
The 34-year-old cop’s father, who lives in Virginia, told The New York Post the allegations against her were “bullshit” and claimed “some wacko” Cincinelli was previously dating once “made an allegation against her before that she tried to kill him.”
“This jackass made allegations about her and I’m sure he’s behind this,” he said, refusing to identify the man. He added that his daughter and her former husband “were married, they have a kid together and then they got divorced. There is no way on the planet my daughter would have someone try to murder him. That’s nonsense!”
A Long Island federal judge ordered Cincinelli remain detained on Friday afternoon. It was not immediately known whether she has a lawyer.
