Photo Courtesy of NYPD
Cincinelli, seen here with her ex-husband Isaiah Carvalho, Jr., was honored as May 2017 Cop of the Month by the Jamaica Rotary Club.
By Michael V. Cusenza
A City cop assigned to the 106th Precinct has been charged with attempting to hire a hitman to murder her ex-husband and the minor daughter of her current boyfriend, according to federal officials.
Police Officer Valerie Cincinelli, 34, was taken into custody at her home in Oceanside, L.I., Friday morning by FBI agents. In a detention memo, federal prosecutors requested the pretrial detention of the mother of two “as there is a serious risk that the defendant poses a danger to the community for which ‘no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of other persons and the community. . .’ and there is a ‘serious risk that the defendant will attempt to obstruct justice.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Cincinelli remains locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
According to the complaint filed in federal court in Central Islip, an investigation by the FBI has revealed that for the last four months Cincinelli, who has been with the NYPD since 2007, requested that her boyfriend, Howard Beach resident John DiRubba, hire a hitman to murder Cincinelli’s estranged husband, Isaiah Carvalho, Jr., and DiRubba’s 15-year-old daughter, who resides in New Jersey.
DiRubba, 54, turned to the FBI. Between February 2019 and the present, according to the detention memo, Cincinelli and DiRubba discussed the murder-for-hire plot both in person, as well as in communications over cell phones; some of said conversations were consensually recorded at the direction of federal agents. During those conversations, Cincinelli explained that she wanted Carvalho and the kid dead.
DiRubba told Cincinelli that he knew someone who would kill both of them for $7,000. According to prosecutors, on or about Feb. 18, Cincinelli made a cash withdrawal of $7,000 from a TD Bank branch in Wantagh, L.I., to pay “the hitman.” Bank records confirm the cash withdrawal. Then, Cincinelli gave $7,000 in cash DiRubba to give to the hitman in payment for the murders.
According to federal officials, at approximately 10:10 a.m. Friday, at the direction of FBI agents,
Cincinelli was notified in person by a Suffolk County Police Department detective at her home, that her estranged husband had been murdered. DiRubba was with Cincinelli at the time of the notification, outfitted with a recording device at the direction of law enforcement. Then, almost immediately after the detective left Oceanside, Cincinelli began to discussed her alibi—specifically, what she would tell the police if she were to be questioned about Carvalho’s death.
Then, around 35 minutes later, an FBI agent, posing as the hitman, sent a text message to DiRubba, which included a photograph of Carvalho appearing dead in his car, and a demand for an additional $3,000 to kill DiRubba’s daughter. In response, Cincinelli instructed her boyfriend to delete the text messages and photographs, citing her fear that law enforcement could subpoena the phone.
“The audio and video recordings of [Cincinelli] discussing the murders are extremely strong evidence of her intent to have them killed,” federal prosecutors said.
Cincinelli, who was a Domestic Violence officer at the 106, has been on modified duty, with her firearms removed, since December 2017 for violating several department rules and regulations.
