WHACK JOB
Officer in hubby-slay plot goes on bizarre rant from jail
The scene was more surreal than the accusation: The 12year NYPD veteran busted for hiring a hit man to whack her estranged husband now begging for his help.
Imprisoned Officer Valerie Cincinelli, her weeping audible via speakerphone Thursday in a Nassau County courtroom, proclaimed her innocence in a pair of murder-for-hire plots before directly addressing her skeptical spouse Isaiah Carvalho.
“Isaiah, can you hear me?” asked Cincinelli in a disembodied voice as their divorce case hearing wound to a close. “Hello, can you hear me? You know I didn’t do this. You know me for how many years? You frickin’ know me. You know I’m a good mom.”
A stone-faced Carvalho, whose “death” was staged earlier this month as part of the federal case against his wife, sat mutely and stared down at a courtroom table while Cincinelli spoke. The two were married four years ago, and Carvalho sued his wife for divorce last year in Nassau County Supreme Court.
By then, she was cheating with a boyfriend who contacted the FBI and wore a wire against Cincinelli after she asked him to find a hit man this past February.
Cincinelli earlier noted that she was only charged and not convicted when the subject turned to an order of protection granted to her 5year-old son in the wake of her May 17 arrest for the alleged schemes to execute Carvalho and the 15-year-old daughter of her beau John DiRubba.
“Your Honor, it’s an allegation,” said Cincinelli, 34, who remains locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. “And I’m going to be found not guilty. I assure you that. It’s just going to take a little time.
“I raised (my son). I’ve done everything for him, and I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s an allegation.”
Her stressed-out spouse declined to discuss the case against his wife, who was indicted Thursday on two
counts of murder for hire and one for obstruction of justice. Prosecutors charged that she allegedly destroyed two iPhones in a failed coverup of the planned homicides.
She was busted after DiRubba, a mob wanna-be described by one former neighbor as a “poor man’s Tony Soprano,” cooperated with the FBI to bring her down. The suspect turned homicidal toward DiRubba’s 15-year-old daughter because the girl was cutting into the couple’s time together, authorities alleged.
The high school student, like Carvalho, escaped unharmed after DiRubba contacted the FBI and the wheels were set in motion for Cincinelli’s arrest.
Both her lawyer in the divorce matter and her criminal defense attorney asserted their client is innocent.
“I don’t think she did any of this,” said marital attorney Vincent Trimarco. “There was never any indication to me that she did any of this, or that anything like this was possible.”
Defense attorney James Kousouros, who took on the case last week, echoed those sentiments.
“We are contesting these charges vigorously,” he said. “There’s clearly more than to this case than meets the eye. We intend to prove Ms. Cincinelli’s innocence in this matter.”
Carvalho said he was unaware of the indictment unsealed Thursday against his wife. At the end of the Long Island hearing, the husband was granted access to the couple’s home to pick up their son’s belongings.
Cincinelli was arrested after federal agents staged a murder scene using the stillalive Carvalho. The “victim” was posed slumping into the passenger seat of his car, and authorities scattered broken glass across the floor and Carvalho’s supposed corpse. A Suffolk County detective actually visited Cincinelli’s Long Island home to notify her of the husband’s fake murder.
Authorities said the bogus death pic of Carvalho was texted to Cincinelli on her cell phone. Under the deal with the “hit man,” the cost for killing Carvalho was $7,000 while the slaying of the teenager would add $3,000 to the terrible tab, authorities said.
According to the indictment, Cincinelli trashed an iPhone 6 and an iPhone X Max to prevent their use in a grand jury investigation of the alleged double murder plot.
If convicted, the maximum prison sentence for murder for hire is 10 years — while obstruction of justice carries a potential 20-year term.
The callous Cincinelli — the mother of a 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship — was unmoved when the phony hit man blanched at the plan to murder the teen near a New Jersey school, according to a source.
“Run her the f–— over,” she allegedly replied. “How about that?”