A 12-year veteran of the NYPD is under arrest for allegedly trying to have a hitman kill her estranged husband and a minor, according to law enforcement.
In a criminal complaint released Friday evening, an FBI investigator alleged that Valerie Cincinelli, 34, asked a "confidential source" to hire a hitman to murder her estranged husband and the source's own minor daughter.
A police official told NY1 that the confidential source was Cincinelli's current boyfriend. Investigators state that he told Cincinelli that he knew someone who could do it for $7,000.
Investigators have been trailing this murder-for-hire plot since February, according to the criminal complaint, and built this case through several phone calls, bank transactions, and wire taps between New York and New Jersey. These conversations also include recordings of Cincinelli discussing how to pay the hitman in gold coins and how to cover up the murders, according to officials.
It all came to a head Friday morning. FBI agents directed Suffolk County police to notify Cincinelli that her estranged husband was dead. FBI agents also sent text messages to Cincinelli and her boyfriend as if it were from a hitman, showing a supposed murder scene and demanding an extra $3,000 to kill the minor. According to the criminal complaint, Cincinelli was recorded responding saying they had to delete the photos from their phone.
She was arrested shortly after and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
Cincinelli was already on modified duty without her gun because of previous domestic violence incidents involving her estranged husband as well as her current boyfriend, according to officials. She was placed on modified assignment in 2017. She worked in the Queens Viper Unit, which monitors police video surveillance cameras. Prior to being placed in modified duty, she worked in the 106th Precinct in Queens two years ago.
Cincinelli appeared in federal court in Central Islip, Long Island, on Friday.
If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison.
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File image of Valerie Cincinelli above is from Longwood University Magazine.
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