File Photo
Former 106th Precinct cop Valerie Cincinelli (c.) has been charged with scheming to employ a hitman to murder her estranged husband and the 14-year-old daughter of her current paramour.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Federal prosecutors on Friday requested that a judge continue to deny bail to a former City cop who has been charged with scheming to employ a hitman to murder her estranged husband and the minor daughter of her current boyfriend.
“The government respectfully submits this letter in opposition to the defendant Valerie Cincinelli’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s prior denial of bail,” Eastern District attorneys wrote to the Hon. Sandra Feuerstein. “Because the defendant has failed to identify any qualifying change in circumstances; has failed to demonstrate a specific vulnerability to illness related to COVID-19; and has failed to show that current Bureau of Prisons restrictions rise to the level of a constitutional violation, the motion should be denied in its entirety.”
Cincinelli, a domestic violence officer assigned to the 106th Precinct, was arrested on May 17, 2019, on an indictment charging her with two counts of murder for hire and one count of obstruction of justice. According to the indictment, an FBI investigation revealed that earlier in 2019, Cincinelli, 36, demanded that her boyfriend, Howard Beach resident John DiRubba, hire a hitman to murder Cincinelli’s estranged husband, Isaiah Carvalho, Jr., and DiRubba’s 14-year-old daughter, who resides in New Jersey.
DiRubba, 55, turned to the feds for help. Between February 2019 and the present, according to authorities, 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 FBI agents. During those conversations, Cincinelli allegedly made it known in no uncertain terms that she wanted Carvalho and the kid dead.
Prosecutors pointed out in Friday’s 10-page filing that last September Judge Feuerstein “agreed with the government, the Pretrial Services Department and [the arraignment judge] that the danger posed by the defendant was too great to justify pretrial release, thus rejecting the proposition that the defendant’s self-serving view of the evidence could suffice to secure her own release from custody. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that a dangerousness finding was ‘strongly’ supported by the fact that two of the offenses involved crimes of violence under the Bail Reform Act and one also involved a minor victim.”
Indeed, in a six-page decision, Feuerstein wrote that she found that Cincinelli, “poses a danger to the safety of the allegedly intended victims and the community, particularly in light of the serious risk that [Cincinelli] would attempt to obstruct justice, as evidenced by her alleged conduct in destroying and/or attempting to destroy evidence prior to her arrest and her disobedience of court directives while in custody. Upon consideration of the factors…particularly the nature and seriousness of the crimes charged; the lengthy term of incarceration the defendant faces if convicted; the strength of the government’s evidence; and the defendant’s personal characteristics and history, particularly her lack of impulse control and remorse and her defensiveness, the Court finds that there is no condition or combination of conditions of release that will reasonably assure the safety of the allegedly intended victims and the community.”
