Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Cop is in BIG Trouble // The Valerie Cincinelli Murder Plot

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Valerie Cincinelli, a former 12-year veteran of the NYPD, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2021 after being caught in a murder-for-hire plot targeting her estranged husband, Isaiah Carvalho, and her boyfriend’s daughter. Cincinelli reportedly paid her then-boyfriend, John DiRubba, to hire a hitman to kill Carvalho as well as DiRubba’s daughter whom she viewed with sheer jealousy.

Your relationship might be bad, but just be glad you aren't dating this cop. Her name's Valerie, and Valerie is about 32 when this story starts, and she's living in Long Island, New York, and in 2017, she meets a guy who changes her whole life. Like I said, she's a police officer, and one day she's on patrol in Queens, and she's driving through a neighborhood, and she sees this guy washing his car, and she's like, damn, he kind of fine. So she decides to pull over and say hey to this guy. Now the guy, his name is John. And John, he starts talking to her and he thinks Valerie's pretty fine as well.

So they hit it off and they start flirting. Here's the problem with all this, though. Valerie is actually married. Regardless, they exchange contact info and they start hanging out and eventually they start smashing. And over time, they get kind of a serious side relationship going. They're sneaking around, they're meeting up at hotels. At one point, they even get matching tattoos on their left hands that say till death. And in addition to that, John gets her name tattooed on him.

So these two are obviously in this really deep. Anyway, so one day, John introduces Valerie to his teenage daughter. And pretty quickly, for some reason, Valerie starts to hate this girl. Like, it seems like she's jealous. Like, she thinks that John buys his daughter too many expensive things, like shoes and bags and makeup and stuff like that, and that he pays too much attention to her. And frankly, Valerie, she just wants all that attention for herself. And John, he knows Valerie's jealous, but he really just tries to keep the peace and not upset her. And about a year goes by, and Valerie and John, they're still dating, still smashing, even though she's married.

And yes, Valerie still hates John's daughter, and they apparently fight about it a lot. Like one day she and John are hanging out and he gets a text, and Valerie's like, who's texting you? And John's like, oh, it was just an email. But Valerie knows it wasn't an email. It was a text from his daughter. And for some reason, she doesn't like that, and she gets super pissed off. And so, boom, she pulls out her gun, and she points it at him and she's like, If you ever lie to me again, I'll blow your head off.

And John, he gets freaked out. And he goes and he reports her to the police. And to their credit, the police department actually punishes her. They place her on what's called modified duty, so she no longer gets to patrol. She now has to monitor security camera footage. Also, they take away her gun. Good. Not only that, but around this time, Valerie's marriage starts falling apart.

Now, her husband is this guy, Isaiah. And at some point, they get into some big fight, and he like, I guess, slaps her phone out of her hand. And so, bam, he ends up getting arrested for domestic violence. Although he claims he did nothing wrong. It honestly just sounds like one big mess. Meanwhile, Valerie's relationship with John isn't going all that well either. And he ultimately breaks up with her. Not sure why.

Maybe it's because she, you know, pointed a guy. gun at him. Either way, he's done. And to escalate the drama, John also decides to reach out to her husband, Isaiah. So the two of them meet up, and John confesses everything to him, and he apologizes for smashing with his wife. And so later, that same year, Isaiah finally files for divorce from Valerie. So now Valerie is no longer married, and she really wants John back. And she's like, constantly calling him and harassing him, and sometimes she'll even threaten him and his daughter. I guess this is her way of trying to get back together with him. I don't know. Either way, John isn't really feeling all this insane behavior, so he goes and he files a restraining order

against her. But that doesn't stop Valerie. She violates the order over and over and over again. And so John, he eventually calls the police and he has her arrested. But then, Valerie goes to court for violating the restraining order, and John goes to court to testify against her. And I guess he just can't bring himself to testify against her. So he lies and says that he made it all up, and he says that she never actually violated the restraining order. So Valerie gets out of trouble. And ultimately, she and John get back together. And if you thought this couldn't get any more messy, oh, it actually gets much worse.

So John and Valerie are now living together, which means Valerie is around John's teenage daughter a lot more, and she still doesn't like John's teenage daughter. Not only that, but she's now going through the divorce with Isaiah, and she's all pissed off about that because, you know, that's a whole stressful, expensive, and tedious legal process. And as time goes on, she keeps getting angrier and angrier about the divorce. and by 2019, she finally goes off the deep end. One day, she tells John that her soon-to-be-X, Isaiah, needs to just die, and that she wants to hire a hitman to do it. And John, I guess he just sort of brushes it off, like he doesn't think she's being serious.

But later, she's still talking about the idea. Plus, she says that they should kill his teenage daughter as well. So now he knows she's serious. Now, as much as John likes Valerie, he's not about to hire a hitman to take out his own daughter. This is a serious crime she's talking about doing. So he's like, all right, and he pretends to go along with it. But the next time she goes to work, he goes and he reports her to the FBI. And the FBI tells him that he should start recording their conversations and that maybe

she'll end up incriminating herself. So John starts low-key recording their conversations. And he gets Valerie to talk about this double murder plot that she wants to pull off, and eventually she says that she wants to hire one hitman who can kill Isaiah, and then run over John's daughter with a car. And John's like, okay, I'll find someone to do it. Meanwhile, the feds, they're trying to set up their own sting operation to catch Valerie. So they go to Isaiah, and they inform him that Valerie is trying to hire a hitman to kill him.

And Isaiah is shocked. I mean, he knows their relationship is bad, but he didn't know it was. was this bad. So the feds tell him that they're going to go after her and that they need his help. They need him to fake his death. And Isaiah hears this plan and he's like, Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store.

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All right. So the feds take Isaiah out to this remote spot and they put him in his car and they scatter broken glass all over the ground and then they have him slumped over over on the steering wheel. I guess try and make it look like he just got shot. And then they take a bunch of pictures of him. Then the police, they go to Valerie's place because I guess they're in on this sting operation too. And they tell her that her husband Isaiah has been murdered. And she, like puts on this whole show and she pretends to be shocked and distraught. So then the police leave. Then John, who's obviously in on this sting operation too, he shows Valerie the staged picture of Isaiah dead in his car. And John tells her that the supposed hitman now wants an extra $3,000 more to murder John's teenage daughter. And of course Valerie agrees to this and she starts talking about how they should delete all their text and messages in case they get busted.

Well, what she doesn't know is that John is wearing a wire and he's been recording this entire conversation. And so, boom, the FBI busts in and bam, they arrest her. And I don't have her mugshot, but here is a picture of her in handcuffs. And so ultimately, she takes a plea deal and she gets sentenced to only four years in prison. That doesn't sound like a lot.