New York police officer Valerie Cincinelli, mother of two, paid $7,000 as part of a complicated scheme to have her husband Isaiah Carvalho Jr. killed.
According to the New York Times, Cincinelli, a 12-year NYPD veteran who once worked in a Queens domestic violence unit, also planned to have the daughter of her boyfriend killed, which prompted the boyfriend to contact the FBI, authorities said.
Cincinelli joined the NYPD in 2007 and worked in the 106th precinct until 2017, when she was placed on modified duty and no longer permitted to carry a gun after being disciplined for sharing confidential information with her then-boyfriend, according to the Times. It is unclear if it is the same boyfriend who informed authorities of her more recent murder-for-hire plot.
“It’s your worst nightmare scenario,” said Matthew Weiss, Carvalho’s lawyer. A machine operator, Carvalho married Cincinelli four years ago before filing for divorce in January. By February, she had asked her boyfriend to hire a hitman to kill her ex, along with his own daughter.
Cincinelli withdrew $7,000 from a bank in Wantagh, N.Y., the same day her boyfriend purchased five ounces of gold coins worth more than $6,900 to pay the would-be killer. Cincinelli and her boyfriend had discussed the plot at length, according to court documents, and used social media to track the whereabouts of her boyfriend’s daughter.
“There is very strong evidence of guilt of the crimes of trying to get these two individuals murdered,” said Judge Anne Y. Shields of federal court in the Eastern District.
According to documents, Cincinelli explained to her boyfriend that the two murders would not appear linked because Carvalho’s attack, which would take place at his job in Holtsville, would “take place in ‘the hood’ or ‘the ghetto.’”
After law enforcement convinced the NYPD vet that the attacks had been carried out, Cincinelli was contacted by a detective who told her they were investigating the death of her husband. After receiving text messages purportedly from the killer by way of FBI agents, Cincinelli called her boyfriend to rehearse their alibis and to make sure he deleted his text messages.
She was taken into custody hours later and is being held without bail.