NEW YORK — A former NYPD officer accused in an alleged murder-for-hire plot was sentenced to jail time Friday for obstruction of justice after previously accepting a plea deal.
Valerie Cincinelli, a 12-year veteran with the department, was arrested in May of 2019. A criminal complaint accused Cincinelli of asking a confidential FBI source to help her hire a hitman to kill her second husband, from whom she is estranged, and her boyfriend’s teenage daughter.
Documents released Monday said she wanted to prevent her husband from receiving a portion of her NYPD pension upon their divorce; she wanted her boyfriend’s daughter dead “essentially out of sheer jealousy and personal hatred.”
She pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and denied allegations that she conspired to commit murder.
“I deleted images on an iPhone with the intent to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation into the murder for hire,” she said at the time she entered her plea back in April. “I know what I did was wrong. I’m truly sorry.”
The former officer was sentenced to 48 months behind bars, followed by supervised release. The judge demanded she seek forgiveness from her estranged husband — an alleged potential-victim in the alleged plot — adding that she needs to “get her act together.”
It was Cincincelli’s boyfriend who went to the FBI about the plot, and agreed to wear a wire.
Court papers say the source informed her he knew someone who would act as a hitman for a price of $7,000. After a local detective went to her home with a fake story that her husband had been murdered, the source recorded her conversation in which she described an alibi, documents said.
Cincincelli said Friday she was in a “deeply deeply damaged” place at the time she spoke with the source, adding that she simply panicked and claimed she knew nobody would actually ever be harmed.
Her lawyer said she wants to “turn back the hands of time.”
“Miss Cincincelli takes full responsibility for her actions,” her attorney said Friday. “She has spent 30 months in jail. Based on the facts, it’s time for her to go home so that her family can begin to help her with her rehab.”
Cincinelli had previously been placed on modified duty for a prior domestic incident, a source told PIX11 News at the time of her arrest.
She previously resigned from the force.
