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A New York City police officer was arrested Friday in connection with a plot to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband and her boyfriend's teen daughter, prosecutors said.
Valerie Cincinelli, 34, of Long Island, was immediately suspended without pay after being charged with conspiracy to commit murder. She was taken into custody after the FBI planned an elaborate ruse where an agent posed as a hitman faked the hit on her former spouse, Isaiah Carvalho Jr.
The murders were supposed to be carried out last weekend, KABC-TV reported.
“The evidence in this case is overwhelming,’’ said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, according to court documents.
The FBI and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs division are involved in the investigation into the alleged murder-for-hire.
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New York City police officer Valerie Cincinelli is accused of trying to have her estranged husband killed. (Twitter / NYPD 106th Precinct )
The FBI was tipped off by Cincinelli's boyfriend when she allegedly added his daughter to the hit list, the New York Daily News reported, citing prosecutors. It was not clear why she might have wanted the girl dead.
The boyfriend, whose name was not released, wore a recording device when meeting with Cincinelli and let authorities record his phone calls, according to court documents.
In February, it's alleged, she withdrew $7,000 from her bank account and had the boyfriend convert it to gold coins to pay the hitman. After expressing concerns in early May about the timing of the slayings, she is said to have told her boyfriend "to have the hitman kill Jan Doe over the weekend and then wait a week or a month to kill John Doe."
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She also requested that the murder not take place in "the hood" or "the ghetto" so it wouldn't look suspicious, the New York Post reported.
While discussing the daughter, the once-decorated cop allegedly said: “Run her the f–k over, how about that."
Police went to Cincinelli's home Friday to inform her that Carvalho had been killed. After they left, reports say, Cicinelli phoned her boyfriend to concoct an alibi. The FBI agent posing as a hitman texted her a photo of a supposedly dead Carvalho with instructions to send $3,000 to kill the girl.
Carvalho's attorney, Matt Weiss, told the news outlet the couple are in the process of a divorce and were due in court June 12.
"He found out today, just like everyone else," Weiss said of Cincinelli's arrest. "All things considered, he sounds OK."
The 12-year veteran was assigned to the Video Interactive Patrol Enhanced Response (VIPER) unit, which monitors security cameras in the city’s low-income housing projects.
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She previously worked in the department’s 106th Precinct in Queens before she was placed on modified duty in 2017 a series of domestic violence incidents involving the boyfriend and Carvalho, the news station reported.
Cincinelli's father, who lives in Virginia, told the New York Post the allegations against her were "nonsense" and said someone she previously dated “made an allegation against her before that she tried to kill him.”
“They were married, they have a kid together and then they got divorced," he said of his daughter and her ex-husband. "There is no way on the planet my daughter would have someone try to murder him. That’s nonsense!"
Cicinelli is being held without bail. She faces up to 10 years in prison.
