Valerie Cincinelli, once celebrated as a police officer and mother of two, found her life turned upside down when authorities informed her that her husband, Isaiah Carvalho, had met a violent end. Suddenly, Cincinelli was not only a suspect but also a tarnished hero.

“Valerie was a constant whirlwind,” remarked John DiRubba, her former boyfriend, during an episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered aired on February 18. “She could be incredibly charming one moment, and then transform into someone unrecognizable the next.”

DiRubba, a single father residing in Queens, New York, encountered Cincinelli in 2017, as her marriage with Carvalho was disintegrating.

He remembers the day vividly—he was washing his car when Cincinelli pulled up in a police cruiser and introduced herself.

“I jokingly asked her, ‘Are you single?'” DiRubba recounted on Dateline. “She replied, ‘No, I’m married,’ but her partner chimed in, ‘Well, not happily married.'”

Despite her marital status and their noticeable age gap—DiRubba was in his 50s, while Cincinelli was in her early 30s—the two quickly plunged into a clandestine romance, characterized by secretive messages, covert hotel rendezvous, and fervent declarations of affection.

DiRubba eventually hoped to start a family with Cincinelli, telling Dateline, “I think it was love at first sight.”    

Over time, Cincinelli introduced DiRubba to her children—under the pseudonym “Mary” in case word got back to their father—and she met DiRubba’s 14-year-old daughter. Sneaking around, however, was key, as Cincinelli told DiRubba that she feared Carvalho.

“He was abusive,” recalled DiRubba of Cincincelli’s allegations. “He would verbally abuse her, he was always watching video games, not paying attention to the kids.” 

One day, Cincinelli’s marriage reached a breaking point. 

DiRubba drove to Cincinelli’s home and was surprised to see Carvalho’s car in the driveway. Over the phone, Cincinelli told DiRubba to park a block away and “Watch the show” (a statement that her attorney would later deny she said).  

A police car pulled up to the home and Carvalho was led away in handcuffs, arrested for allegedly smacking her hand, causing her phone to fall to the ground. 

Carvalho pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct violation and moved out of his marital home, although he long denied the abuse allegations. Carvalho suspected his wife of cheating, but his family told Dateline that he didn’t want a divorce.

Meanwhile, Cincinelli and DiRubba’s relationship moved forward, but there was a problem: Cincinelli seemed to resent DiRubba’s daughter.

“She would say things like, ‘Why are you going to the mall with your daughter buying her things and not buying me and my kids things?’” DiRubba told Dateline. “I didn’t know how to take it at the time.”

Almost one year into their relationship, DiRubba received a text message from his daughter. When Cincinelli asked who he was texting, he told her the alert was an email, in the hopes of avoiding an argument.

DiRubba said that’s when Cincinelli pulled out a gun. 

“She points it right to my face,” DiRubba told Dateline, “and she says to me, ‘If you ever lie to me again, I’ll blow your head off.’”

DiRubba reported Cincinelli to the police, and as part of an investigation, reported Dateline, her gun was confiscated and she was placed on modified duty. 

Cincinelli had lost both men: DiRubba broke off their relationship and Carvalho had initiated the divorce process. Driven by guilt, DiRubba contacted Carvalho to confess the affair and apologize. 

The men met at a restaurant and DiRubba learned that Carvalho wasn’t the monster Cincinelli had painted. “It was kind of sad,” DiRubba tearfully told Dateline. “He wanted to keep his family … he didn’t want to get divorced.”  

It was closure for DiRubba, who by March 2018, had moved on from his relationship and had taken out a restraining order against Cincinelli after she wouldn’t stop calling. When Cincinelli violated the terms, DiRubba had her arrested, this time on criminal charges. 

But when DiRubba saw Cincincelli inside the courtroom, he said the chemistry between them was overwhelming.

“She was giving me eyes, looking at me, staring at me,” DiRubba told Dateline. “I felt that feeling again.” DiRubba told the judge he lied in court and her charges were dropped.

Countdown to Death Dates

In 2018, Cincinelli and DiRubba were back together and living with her son; however, according to John, she still refused to accept his daughter. 

“I was so in love with her,” DiRubba told Dateline, “that anything she wanted me to do, I would do.” 

DiRubba arranged for his daughter to live with friends and even got a professional cover-up of his tattoo in the girl’s name.

Meanwhile, as Cincinelli and Carvalho’s divorce grew more contentious, she came up with a permanent solution for her troubles. 

As DiRubba recalled to Dateline, “She says, ‘We gotta get rid of him … maybe you know somebody who can do you a favor.’”

According to DiRubba, Cincinelli wanted his daughter dead too so she and DiRubba could solely raise her children. (Cincinelli would later deny any future charges, in footage included in the Dateline episode). 

DiRubba told Dateline that he never considered having his daughter or Carvalho killed, but, to diffuse Cincinelli’s emotions, he pretended to know a hitman who could execute both hits for $7,000. He said Cincinelli withdrew the money from the bank. (Cincinelli’s attorney would later tell Dateline that she intended that money to be a loan to DiRubba, to invest in gold). 

For DiRubba, it was the last straw. He reported Cincinelli to the FBI and agreed to become an informant. 

The FBI asked DiRubba to secretly record his conversations with Cincinelli, to verify his story. In what DiRubba called an Academy Award-winning performance, he played along with Cincinell’s scheme, even getting matching “Til death” tattoos. 

On the recordings, some of which were included in the Dateline episode, Cincinelli suggested the hitman stage a botched robbery for Carvalho and a car crash for the teen. “Run her the f— over,” Cincinelli said on the tape. 

The FBI then arranged to stage the “murder” with the help of a surprising recruit: Isaiah Carvalho. 

As Carvalho remembered, “They go, ‘We don’t know how to tell you this, but your wife put a hit out on you.’” 

As part of the sting operation, police staged a bloody photoshoot that made it appear as though Carvalho had been shot in his car in a marina. 

Detectives visited Cincinelli’s home, where DiRubba was at the time, to break news of Carvalho’s “murder.” Cincinelli’s distraught reaction was recorded on police body cameras and included in the Dateline episode. “Are you f—ing kidding me?” she sobbed in the footage. “This doesn’t feel real right now.” 

After authorities left, DiRubba and Cincinelli discussed their alibis and how to destroy evidence, conversations that were recorded on DiRubba’s hidden device. Most urgently, a photo of a “deceased” Carvalho that the “hitman” (aka, the FBI) had sent to DiRubba to prove the job was done. 

That’s when the FBI descended on the home, arresting Cincinelli.

Playing Out a “Fantasy”

Cincinelli was charged with two counts of murder-for-hire and one count of obstruction, to which she pleaded not guilty. 

In footage captured by Dateline, Cincinelli, while handcuffed, told reporters, “I’ll be acquitted, because I did not do this.”  

Carvalho and DiRubba’s daughter were never harmed by Cincinelli. Carvalho also told Dateline that he had never abused Cincinelli. 

Defense attorney James Kousouros placed the blame on DiRubba, accusing him of encouraging Cincinelli to make controversial statements on the FBI recordings. 

He argued that Cincinelli—who did not appear in the Dateline episode— was only fantasizing about killing Carvalho and DiRubba’s daughter. “I have consistently said that she is clearly playing out this fantasy during these conversations that she never believed would come to fruition,” Kousouros told Dateline. He added that Cincinelli became “unhinged,” in part, due to medication she had been taking after a shoulder surgery.

Kousouros also highlighted what he called a lack of evidence, claiming that money was never exchanged for the hits. According to Kousouros, the $7,000 that DiRubba said was payment for the hitman, was a loan from Cincinelli to DiRubba to invest in gold.

In April 2021, Cincinelli made a plea deal, and the murder-for-hire charges were dropped. Cincinelli pleaded guilty to one charge of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to four years in prison. According to Dateline, at her Oct. 2021 sentencing, Cincinelli apologized to the court, saying, “I can’t believe that I allowed myself to get to that place, that dark place.”

With time served, Cincinelli was released in Oct. 2022.

Carvalho is thankful that DiRubba contacted the FBI, telling Dateline, “If he didn’t go, who knows if I would even be here today?”