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NYPD officer from Oceanside charged in alleged murder-for-hire plot against her ex-husband, underage girl

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An NYPD officer from Oceanside is charged with allegedly asking her boyfriend to hire a hitman to murder her ex-husband and an underage girl, according to law enforcement officials.

Valerie Cincinelli, 34, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and appeared in federal court in Central Islip on May 17. She was arrested by the FBI after an investigation showed that she and her boyfriend were allegedly trying to find a hitman to kill her ex-husband, later identified as Isaiah Carvalho Jr., 32, and her boyfriend’s 15-year-old daughter.

“He found out today, just like everyone else,” Carvalho’s attorney, Matthew Weiss, told the New York Post after Cincinelli’s arrest. “All things considered, he sounds OK.”

The FBI and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau brought the case against Cincinelli, who is a mother of two, and the Eastern District of New York is prosecuting. A spokesperson for the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information for the NYPD told the Herald in an email that Cincinelli has been suspended without pay as the charges are investigated.

Cincinelli was assigned to the 106th Precinct in Queens in 2007. She has been working modified assignments since 2017, according to police, such as being assigned to a unit that monitors surveillance feeds in public housing developments after several domestic incidents — including one in which she lost her badge and gun after visiting an ex-boyfriend’s house while on duty. Cincinelli has two ex-husbands, each of whom filed restraining orders against her, and she filed one against Carvalho.

Cincinelli’s alleged plan began in February, when she asked her boyfriend, whom the FBI only identified as a confidential source, to hire a hitman to kill Carvalho and his own daughter, according to the FBI. Carvalho filed for divorce from Cincinelli in January after four years of marriage, and the two were in the middle of a custody battle.

Calls to the FBI’s press office to request comment on the case, including why the boyfriend would hire a hitman to kill his own daughter, were not returned at press time.

According to court documents, the boyfriend told Cincinelli that he knew someone who would carry out the hit on Carvalho and his daughter for $7,000. On Feb. 18, Cincinelli withdrew that amount from a TD Bank in Wantagh and gave it to her boyfriend, who then converted the cash into gold coins to pay a hitman.

The two continued discussing the plot from February through May via phone calls and text messages, many of which happened while Cincinelli was in her Oceanside home, according to a seven-page complaint filed by the FBI.

Cincinelli’s boyfriend recorded a conversation he had with her on May 8, under the direction of the FBI, during which he informed her that the hitman said the murders would be carried out the following weekend. The boyfriend then told her that it would look suspicious to have the murders occur at the same time, and Cincinelli told him to have the daughter killed over the weekend and to wait a week or a month to have Carvalho killed.

According to the complaint, Cincinelli said it would not be suspicious because Carvalho and the school-age girl would be murdered in separate locations. She also checked the girl’s social media posts to see where she was, eventually telling the boyfriend that she is in New York during the week and New Jersey on weekends. Cincinelli then said she had nothing to worry about because she would be at home during the time of the murders, and asked the boyfriend why he did not just carry out the murders himself.

On May 13, the boyfriend recorded a conversation with Cincinelli at the FBI’s urging, in which they agreed to have the hitman kill Carvalho by his job in Holtsville, where he works as a machine operator. During the discussion, the complaint reads, Cincinelli informed her boyfriend about the make, model and color of Carvalho’s car.

The pair then discussed their alibis in a recorded conversation and Cincinelli came up with potential scenarios for carrying out the murders. She said Carvalho sells fireworks and that they could make it appear that a money dispute over a sale led to his murder. She told her boyfriend that it would not look suspicious, because her ex-husband would be killed in “the hood” or “the ghetto,” according to the complaint.

Cincinelli’s boyfriend also informed her that the hitman found the underage girl in New Jersey. She asked him why the hit was not carried out, and the boyfriend said that the hitman did not want to perpetrate the act near a school. In response, Cincinelli said, “run her the f—k over, how about that?” according to the FBI’s complaint.

Cincinelli then said if the hitman knows where the girl lives, then there should not be a problem. Using her phone, Cincinelli then discovered that the girl was in Warwick, N.Y. The two continued to discuss the plot later that day, and the boyfriend told her that the hitman requested an additional $3,000 to commit the murders.

On May 17, investigators from the Suffolk County Police Department came to Cincinelli’s home and said that her ex-husband was murdered, which was a lie formed under the direction of the FBI. Under the guise of the hitman, FBI agents sent a text message to Cincinelli’s boyfriend, which included a picture of the alleged murder scene.

Immediately after the police left, Cincinelli called her boyfriend to discuss their alibis and tell him to delete his text messages. The FBI recorded the call.

Later that afternoon, Cincinelli was taken into custody and the court ordered that she remain in prison while the case is tried. She is charged with the use of interstate commerce for murder for hire.

“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 on May 17, according to the New York Times. Shields cited the “danger” and “serious risk” Cincinelli posed to her estranged husband and the young girl she is accused of targeting.