Plea talks ongoing in case of suspended NYPD cop accused of 2 murder plots, attorney says

Plea negotiations are ongoing between federal prosecutors and an attorney for a suspended New York City police officer from Oceanside accused of plotting two killings, the officer’s attorney said Monday.

James Kousouros, who represents suspended NYPD officer Valerie Cincinelli, 35, disclosed the plea talks Monday at a routine status conference for his client conducted telephonically at the federal District Court in Central Islip.

Afterward, Kousouros and a spokesman for Eastern District prosecutors, John Marzulli, declined to comment.

Indicating that a resolution of the case may not yet be imminent, though, an Eastern District federal prosecutor in the case, Catherine Mirable, asked the presiding district judge on the Cincinelli case to set a trial date.

Judge Sandra Feuerstein, however, declined to do so, stating that the scheduling uncertainties caused by the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult to predict when a trial could be held.

Instead, Feuerstein said she would consider setting a trial date for Cincinelli at the next status conference in mid-January.

Cincinelli was arrested in May of 2019 and charged with two counts of murder-for-hire and one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly plotting to have her estranged husband and the teenage daughter of her boyfriend killed.

Prosecutors said that Cincinelli was in "a volatile relationship" with both the estranged husband and the boyfriend, and that when told that a hit man supposedly hired to kill the teen "did not want to carry out the murder near a school" she responded that he should run her over, adding "how about that?"

According to prosecutors, Cincinelli also wanted the hit man to kill her husband in Holtsville, near where he worked, saying, "it would not look suspicious because the murder would take place ‘in the hood’ or ‘the ghetto.’ "

Kousouros has said his client is not guilty and that she has been set up by her boyfriend. Further, Kousouros had said that government has selectively edited or misinterpreted his client’s text messages.

Cincinelli joined the NYPD in 2007 and had worked in the 106th Precinct in Queens. More recently, she had been assigned to a unit which monitors surveillance cameras in city public housing areas.

Since her arrest she has been denied bail, and held in the federal jail in Brooklyn. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

By Robert E. Kessler

Robert.Kessler@newsday.com

Bob Kessler covers federal law, including law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS and ATF, as well as the federal courts.