[narrator] Truck salesman Isaiah Carvalho wants nothing more
than to be a husband and father.
[Carvalho] I just wanted to have my own family.
I wanted to be a dad, that was one of my main goals out of life to achieve.
[narrator] And out of the blue, he gets his wish.
[Carvalho] Wow, she's beautiful.
Anything that I could have ever wanted in a woman, you know.
I was intrigued at the fact that she was a cop.
[narrator] But soon, law and order will give way to chaos.
She called me, told me that they got into an argument and she called the cops.
The cops come and say, "We gotta take you in."
She worked in domestic violence unit,
so she knew exactly how to play the system.
[narrator] What happens when the person you trust most starts gunning for you?
You really need to do something about Valerie, she wants to hurt Isaiah.
[Carvalho] I always had hopes of having a family,
that was, like, the biggest thing in the world to me.
I wanted to be a dad, I wanted to be a husband
and I just wanted to have everything that, you know,
a good guy would want out of life.
When I was younger, my parents went through a divorce
and it was hard for a while, my mom had me and my sister
and basically took care of us by herself.
And I saw the pain and the hurt that she went through
and from that day on, I swore that I would never do that to anybody, ever.
I guess Isaiah felt like, "Well, my mom and dad didn't work out,
so I wanna make sure that when I do have somebody, it's gonna be forever."
[Carvalho] I vowed to myself that I would be
the best version of me that I could be
and treat whoever I was with like they were everything.
Lucky for me, my stepfather, Patrick was always great to me and my sister.
You know, he always treated us like we were his own.
[Patrick] I was working up in the detective squad in the 106 one day.
Valerie came in, she was a patrol officer downstairs.
And she came in with a complaint report that's filled out for a crime.
And she sees a picture on my desk
and she turns around and goes, "Who's that?"
And it's my son.
She's, like, "Gosh, just hook a girl up."
[narrator] Twenty-six-year-old Valerie Cincinelli is a single mother
making a name for herself with the NYPD.
[Brian Glennon] She caught an armed, uh, robber,
she received officer of the month award multiple times.
[Carvalho] My stepfather was, like, "Okay, you know."
He called me and he was, like, "Hey, you know,
there's this girl that I work with
and she wants to get to know you."
[Patrick] Valerie comes up again, so I went onto my laptop
and logged on to, uh, Facebook I had at the time.
I said, "Well, here's his Facebook page."
And she went on it right in front of me and all she put down...
I remember it, she goes, "Hey, this is Valerie, I work with your dad,
there's my number, give me a call."
[narrator] Isaiah perks up when he sees Valerie's message and responds immediately.
Initially we were gonna go out, just me and her.
She had a last minute cancellation from a babysitter and couldn't get anybody.
When I got there, she came outside
and, yeah, I was blown away, I was, like, "Wow, she's beautiful."
She brought me into the apartment and she was, like,
"You're gonna meet my daughter."
And I remember seeing Sophia and being, like, "Wow,
she's the most adorable little girl I've ever seen in my life."
And she took to me instantly and we were playing with a ball
and we were playing catch and rolling it on the floor and she was running up to me.
I thought, "Wow, maybe I can have a family of my own.
And this would be a great start to it."
And then we set up our second date.
I met her at a bar and I met her friends and her friends liked me
and they were, like, "Yeah, he's great, he's so nice
and I think he'll be good for you."
We were outside in front of the bar and she kissed me.
And it was a very long and sensual kiss
and we were basically lost in each other.
[narrator] Over the next few months, Isaiah and Valerie become exclusive.
We went on vacations together, we would take Sophia to the farm.
It felt like a family environment.
Valerie was very loving and would call me 100 times a day
to tell me "I love you" or "I miss you".
And I just felt like I was on top of the world.
[narrator] Almost a year into their relationship,
Isaiah decides it's time to introduce Valerie to his extended family.
I invited her to Easter dinner at my mom's.
[Maryann] He goes, "I think I really love her, Ma."
You know, "This is great I found the perfect person."
And I'm, like, "I'm happy for you, I think that's great."
Don't rush into this.
And he's like, "No, I know, I know.
But, Ma, I'm telling you, this is it."
When we arrived, Valerie, instantly, you could tell that there was something off.
Isaiah was very close with his cousin Christina.
My cousin would watch us when my mom was working, me and my sister.
I was very close to this cousin,
she was kind of like a second mom to me.
Any girl that Isaiah has ever dated, he's always said,
"Just wait until you meet my cousin.
She is the one you've gotta get past,
because she's kind of hard to please."
Valerie didn't like that when it came time to meet her.
[Maryann] Christina comes into the house and she says hello to everybody
and she was very polite.
Valerie didn't say anything to Christina, she totally ignored her.
I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm preparing things and making stuff
and all of a sudden, Christina comes into the kitchen
and she turns around and she goes, "Are you kidding me?"
And I said, "What's the matter?"
She goes, "Is that chick for real?
She is the rudest thing I've ever met."
Valerie overheard her.
So Valerie comes into the kitchen and it was, like,
the biggest fight ever.
All of a sudden, Valerie just starts screaming
at the top of her lungs at my niece.
I can't even say the stuff she said.
Who does that?
Who reacts that way at a family party with people you don't know?
I felt like it was just, "Uh, okay, she's jealous kind of a person."
I was, like, "That's a side of her that I haven't seen before."
I basically just brushed it to the side.
And we spoke about it and she apologized.
You know, she offended me and I was, like, "Okay, we'll move on from this."
And things got, you know, even more serious between me and her.
My friend Michelle, uh, just wrote "Happy birthday, I love ya"
on Facebook or something and Valerie freaked out on me, thought I was cheating on her.
I was, like, "No, it's not even like that, she's my best friend's wife."
And she didn't wanna hear it and she said, "It's either me or them."
My brother had so many friends and he stopped talking to all of them
when he started dating her.
Valerie ended up telling me that she wanted to get married
and she wanted to have a life together.
She wanted to go to this hotel in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
I was, like, "Let me call up, see if they have
any availability and I'll book it."
That's exactly what I did.
She opened the door and walked in and turned the lights on
and saw the roses and balloons, everything.
And I was on one knee and I had the ring open.
She started crying and looked at me
and I couldn't even really say it.
I was, like, "Do you wanna..." And she was, like, "Yes!"
Before I even finished the sentence.
And she hugged me, kissed me.
And it was a predominant moment in my life.
We're planning the wedding, we had the date set, it was gonna be, like...
I believe it was September of 2013.
And during that time, it was around Valentine's Day.
Me and her went out, she loved Mexican food.
So I took her to a really nice Mexican restaurant.
And we got a little drunk. [chuckles] Not gonna lie.
And, uh, we had a great time, we got back home, to the house
and spent the night.
And then, all of a sudden, a week later,
she's, like, "Hey, I'm pregnant."
I was excited, nervous, I couldn't believe that I was gonna have
a baby of my own.
[narrator] The wedding is postponed
as the couple prepare for the baby.
[Carvalho] And the doctor proceeded to tell her that...
It was a boy.
The baby was thriving, I was excited, I was overjoyed,
I was just overcome with a rush of emotions.
[narrator] They decide to call their new son Salvatore.
[cell phone ringing]
I ended up getting the phone call
that she was ready to have the baby.
And I rushed to the hospital.
The doctor's, like, "Okay, here's the baby, he's coming."
And I saw the crowning and I saw his head.
I got to share that moment with my son.
And it changed my life forever.
I was so happy for him,
for me to see my nephew
and my brother.
First time dad.
Those are all exciting things.
Valerie was not having it.
She didn't want anybody there.
She didn't speak to anybody.
I was, like, "Maybe she'll change.
Maybe everything will be fine once we get home,
get in the house and get settled, everything will be different."
It got progressively worse.
It was my mom's 50th birthday and Valerie adamantly
said to me, "I don't wanna go."
She's, like, "You have a newborn, you should stay home."
And I'm, like, "It's my mom's 50th birthday.
This is a milestone in her life."
I got home and it was, like, 11:00, 11:30
and she got into a screaming match with me.
And freaked out and said, "Why did you leave me here with our son?"
And we were screaming and yelling and I got frustrated and left the room,
went downstairs into the basement.
So that was the first instance that I had where she called the cops on me.
I told my parents and my brother,
"One day she' going to do something really crazy."
And everybody used to say, "No, she wouldn't, she's a cop.
She's a good person."
Well, told you.
[siren blaring]
[narrator] Officer Valerie Cincinelli
of the NYPD's domestic violence unit calls local police to her home
after an argument with her fiance, Isaiah.
[Carvalho] They came into the house
and come downstairs and look at me.
And I'm, like, "Why are you guys here?"
"We were called to come here, is everything okay?"
I'm, like, "Yeah, everything's fine, we had a disagreement.
She was arguing with me."
And they were, like, "Well, why don't you just stay downstairs
on the couch tonight and let things blow over?"
And I was, like, "Okay, well I planned on doing that anyway."
She didn't talk to me for days.
She didn't wanna talk to me at all.
I was truly sorry.
[narrator] Eventually, the couple moves on,
continuing with their plans for a beach-themed wedding.
[Stephanie] It was a beautiful day.
I remember showing up and we were taking family photos
and Isaiah, he was, again, very excited, like, glowing, so happy.
As a mother, I just had that gut feeling,
that instinct that she's not gonna work.
One of her uncles came up to me and told me, "Run."
And I'm, like, "What are you talking about?"
And this is somebody in her family telling me this.
And I still brushed it to the side
and paid no mind to it.
The honeymoon phase lasted, like... [scoffs]
Probably a week and a half to two weeks.
We didn't even go on a honeymoon.
She didn't wanna go.
[baby crying]
[Carvalho] We made a decent amount of money from the wedding
and she kept every single dollar of it.
So, her money was her money and my money was her money.
I picked up a second job working on weekends doing estimates
for my cousin's gutter company and I was bringing home
a decent amount of cash on the weekends.
All the responsibility of our son was on me.
Diaper changes, feeding him, baths,
whatever it was, I had to do it.
[narrator] Isaiah is initially successful in placating Valerie,
but three years into his marriage,
he realizes something is terribly wrong.
She started to disappear and always said she was working late,
or always said that she was stuck on a detail.
Something in me told me that she's doing something, this is not normal.
She has to be cheating on me, there has to be somebody else.
I used to fill her car up.
One day I took her car and something in me was, like, "Check the car.
Just look around the car real quick."
And I lifted the floor mat and I found cards.
And they didn't say a name on it,
but you could tell that they were love cards.
I ended up going home and confronting her.
And she freaked out and said, "Those are my friend's cards.
She left them in the car and I just put them there
so I didn't forget where they were."
I just felt like she wasn't being honest with me at all.
She agreed to go to counseling with me.
When we initially went to counseling,
she made it seem like I wasn't doing enough.
And nothing amounted to anything to her, ever.
She wanted more and more and more.
Very different than your typical couple fighting,
it was anything and everything they fought about.
-[baby crying] -[muffled shouting]
[Carvalho] When we went back to the therapist,
the therapist was, like, "Well, why don't you guys go on a vacation
or spend some quality time together as a family?"
And I was, like, "You know what? That's a good idea."
So I booked for us to go to St. Martin together.
We went to an all-inclusive resort, but the whole time we were there,
I slept in the living room with Sal and she slept in the bedroom with Sophia.
When things didn't go so well, Valerie's main goal was to turn Sophia against me.
And she made it her priority to do so.
We're on a tropical island, this is supposed to be a time for us to reconnect.
And there was no reconnection.
[narrator] The couple returns to Long Island
and when the NYPD throws its annual Christmas party in 2017,
Valerie tells Isaiah she's going alone.
She went and around 10:00, she texted me and said, "Hey, on my way."
10:30 rolls around, 11:00, I'm, like, "There's no way.
Like, it doesn't take that long to leave there."
I'm calling her and texting her, no answer.
So I tracked the phone and I see that she went a completely different route.
And I see that the tracker went off and I got the last known location
of the tracker and I went to the last known location and I found her car,
parked behind a closed auto shop.
So I proceeded to look around, walk around, look and see if I could find her,
or see if I could see her in the car with somebody else.
She ended up finally coming home.
And said, "Oh, no, I was dropping a friend off.
You're crazy, you're a psychopath."
And I was, like, "There's no way.
You never told me about anybody that lived over there."
She ended up proceeding upstairs into the bedroom,
slammed the door closed and locked it.
Now, my work clothes were in there,
so I'm knocking on the door, like, "Hey, I need my work clothes."
She told me that if I didn't stop knocking on the door,
she was gonna shoot me through the door, make it look like an accident.
After that happened, we got into an argument.
I confronted her again and I told her that you're lying to me,
I know something's going on.
She swore up and down to me again,
"I don't want nobody but you, you're the only one for me."
Okay, well, if you're not lying to me
and nothing happened that night, let me see your phone.
If you have nothing to hide, then what's the reason that you can't show it to me?
And I went to grab the phone and she grabbed it
and it fell down and it broke the screen protector.
The cops come and they tell me to wait outside.
She talks to them, tells them that she's an officer.
She told them that I hit her with a belt and knocked the phone out of her hand.
Cops come back outside and say there's a no tolerance
for any type of domestic abuse, we gotta take you in.
They cuffed me and put me in the back of the car
and took me to booking and kept me overnight.
I felt like an empty shell, I felt broken.
I had a big fear that she was going to do everything in her power
to make sure that I was basically screwed.
[narrator] NYPD cop Valerie Cincinelli
has just lodged a formal domestic abuse complaint
against her husband, Isaiah Carvalho.
Isaiah's stepfather, Detective Patrick Roach,
is right by his stepson's side when Isaiah faces a judge.
[Patrick] When his case got called,
judge just kind of looked at me and he asked,
"Do you work in the same precinct?"
I said, "Yeah, she works in domestic violence,
the next office over from mine and he's my stepson."
And he looked at me and goes, "So she knows the system." I said, "Yes."
He goes, "Okay," and he released him on his own recognizance.
[Carvalho] The judge granted her a temporary restraining order,
where we could not fight.
I could go back home, but I was not allowed to argue, fight
curse at her or anything.
We went to one more session of therapy.
And I broke down, cried, and I was like,
"I'm trying to do everything that you told me to do.
I took us on vacation."
And the therapist was like,
"I don't think she's seeing anybody else.
I just think that there's some type of block
and there's basically nothing you can do."
And I cried and she was laughing at me crying
because all I wanted was us to stay together.
[narrator] The next day, Isaiah comes home early from work
excited to spend some time with his son.
[Isaiah] I walk into the house and I'm like, "Hey, Sal. Daddy's home. Hey, buddy."
'Cause he would usually come running and be like, "Hey, Daddy!"
Be so excited.
And, nothing.
So, I'm like, "Sophia?"
Nothing.
[narrator] Valerie appears and after a heated argument,
she tells Isaiah that Sal is at a friend's house
and she's on her way to pick him up.
"Okay, well, I'll follow you to wherever he is
and I'll take him for the day."
She got in the car. I followed her a little bit.
And all of a sudden, here comes a squad car.
And the cops, they told me, "Well, listen, you know, we had a complaint that
you were following her and that she felt threatened."
But the ended up arresting me for the second time.
[narrator] But this time, the judge is less lenient.
He ended up issuing a full stayaway order of protection.
So, now not only was I not allowed to go into the house
or be with my son,
everything that I owned
and everything that I had was there.
[narrator] Isaiah moves out and files for divorce.
But the consequences are devastating.
[Isaiah] The law guardian granted her residential custody
instead of giving 50-50 custody.
I was not allowed to see my son for four months.
I had to go to court for visitation.
When I finally retained my lawyer and told her what happened,
she said that we were going to have a hard time trying to get Sal.
He didn't want to be a part-time dad.
So, it was really hard for him.
I went to go drop him off one time, bring him back home,
and I went with two female officers.
I go to the door and Sal's screaming bloody murder.
Valerie basically had to rip him out of my arms.
She couldn't get him to let go.
And it infuriated her and she slammed the door in my face
while I was holding Sal with the officers present.
And told me to keep him.
A week later, I get a phone call
from a sergeant from that precinct
saying that if I didn't bring Sal back,
he was going to have me arrested.
I was like, "What are you talking about?
She told me to keep him.
She slammed the door with two of your officers present."
And she tried to say that I kidnapped him.
And I ended up having to bring him back again.
She completely broke me down
in every way that you could possibly break somebody down.
[narrator] With Valerie having sole custody of his son Sal,
Isaiah feels like he's in his darkest hour.
And then, there's a ray of hope.
[Patrick] I was working one day and I get a text on my phone
that says, "You may want to call this guy, John. Here's his number.
He has information that'll help your son with his divorce."
So I didn't know what the number was.
Text that person back, I'm... "Okay, thanks. Who is this?"
And it said, "Don't worry about who it is. Friend of the department."
And curiosity killed the cat.
So I stopped by and meet this guy,
John DiRubba, at his house.
He opens up his laptop
and he starts showing me pictures of my son.
And he goes, "I'm dating Valerie."
I said, "You're dating Valerie?"
He's like, "Yeah."
He started to explain that when Isaiah would drop of Sal,
that she would come in, she'd start crying,
telling what a monster he is. "He beat me."
So, he would follow Isaiah
thinking he's following so kind of an abusive husband.
You know, a monster.
And he told me that there was one time she was up in the shower
he grabbed her phone and went through her phone.
And he noticed text messages from Isaiah to Valerie
saying that he wanted to keep the family together,
"We should go to counselling." "Let's make this work."
And he realized, "Wait a minute.
This isn't the monster she's telling me about.
This is a guy that wants his family back."
So, now he felt really guilty on everything that was going on.
[narrator] John asks to meet Isaiah, and when they do,
Isaiah learns why he and Valerie failed to reconnect
when they went on vacation.
He showed me photos of when we went to St. Martin.
There was pictures that Valerie sent him.
Dirty pictures.
Pictures of her in bikinis.
He told me they got matching tattoos
that said, "'til death."
That they were going to be together "'til death."
Her and him.
The night of the Christmas party when she went missing
and I was looking for her,
John told me that they were in the car
across the parking lot watching me the whole time.
Part of the motivation for him to come forward
that they were having problems.
He just wanted to do the right thing
and try to help me to get Sal.
And all the time that he should have been spending with me,
he was with this guy and not his own father.
And that tore me apart.
That destroyed me.
[narrator] Although John promises to help Isaiah
get custody of his son, he never delivers.
[Isaiah] He ended up going back and getting back with her.
Valerie had a way about her
that made guys fall for her.
I don't know how. I don't know why.
But she was good at what she was doing.
I made an offer for custody of Sal
and $50,000 for the renovations I did on the house
and the money that I put into the house.
And the rings back.
She declined my offer
and my lawyers proceeded to say,
"Okay, well, if you decline the offer, we're going to go after everything."
I was entitled to her pension, deferred comp, her 401K,
the increased value of the house.
And when those numbers came back,
they were substantially greater than the offer that I had originally presented.
She did not take lightly to that
'cause she didn't even want to give me a dollar.
Because, again, her money was her money.
[narrator] Isaiah has no idea just how far Valerie will go
to keep her money.
I started getting text messages from someone else
that was totally out of the blue.
"You really need to do something about Valerie."
"She wants to hurt Isaiah."
They said, "We don't know how to tell you this, but,
she wants to have you killed."
Yeah. I am scared.
[narrator] Detective Patrick Roach has been warmed
by an anonymous tipster
that fellow officer Valerie Cincinelli
intends to harm his stepson, Isaiah.
I would get text that says that, uh, Valerie's getting very frustrated.
She doesn't understand how Isaiah was staying five steps ahead of her.
[narrator] Isaiah moves in with his parents for protection.
[Patrick] He'd always call me when he was on the road.
And I'd always give him a different way to go home.
He always changed it up.
[narrator] But Isaiah is all alone one morning
when an alarming situation arises.
[Isaiah] All of a sudden I see this car come speeding down the block
and literally skid-stop in front of my house.
Two guys in suits get out of the car and tell me that,
you know, that they're federal officers,
and to not run and...
I'm scared for my life at this point.
And, uh, without even preparing me
or breaking it to me slowly, they were like,
"Your wife hired a hitman. She wants to have you killed.
And we got to go fake your death right now."
I couldn't believe it.
I was blown away.
I called my stepfather and I told him,
"Listen, there's two guys who are posing to be FBI agents."
And he's like, "Wake your mother up. Tell her to come downstairs."
I started crying and I was like,
"You've-- Like, oh, my God.
What? What do you mean, 'a hit out?'"
Could not believe it.
She wants him dead, but she's hiring someone to do it.
I was totally shocked.
Yeah, I think the girl's crazy, but,
would have never in a million years thought that
she would be capable of wanting to kill somebody.
[Isaiah] I was like, "Where's my son?"
"He's at school. There's an FBI agent there
and you're gonna get him later."
[narrator] The FBI learned about the plot to kill Isaiah
from a source close to Valerie.
John DiRubba came to the FBI
with some recordings that he made of, uh, Valerie.
He also stated to the FBI that she provided him
with $7,000 to give to a hit man
to make this happen.
She wanted me dead
because she didn't want me to show up to court.
She didn't want me to get any money from her.
[narrator] Valerie also doesn't want to share John DiRubba.
[Isaiah] She wanted to have John DiRubba's 14-year-old daughter taken out as well.
In fact, the reason she said that she wanted to have her
taken out was because she was getting in the way.
She thought that John was gonna, you know,
do everything according to her beck and call.
Including killing his own daughter.
Because he was that in love with her.
I think that if Valerie didn't add his daughter to the list,
of people she wanted dead,
that my son would be dead right now.
[narrator] An agent posing as the hitman John hired
has already meet with Valerie
to discuss payment for the job.
There was a form of payment. It was $7,000 in gold coins.
[narrator] Now they need to provide proof
of Isaiah's death to John DiRubba
who is standing by, in on the plan.
[Isaiah] And they took me over to the marina near my house
and they had me sit in my car.
And they had me fake my death.
They put glass all over me and all over the floor
and they had me hunch into the passenger seat.
And they took pictures of me.
So, now, I'm, uh, presumed dead.
It was, uh,
the most surreal thing I ever been through in my life.
[Maryann] My husband came home and two of us are in the house
and they had agents watching.
We don't know where but, you know, they were watching
the house and everything and
we were just waiting and waiting and waiting.
I was nervous. I was pissed.
I was upset because I blame it on myself
that I brought this to the family.
You know what? Should have kept your mouth shut.
You know, when Valerie turned around and said, "Oh, who's that?"
You know.
The FBI sends this photo to John DiRubba
so he can present it to Valerie
and at the time John DiRubba has a body-worn camera
and could record what her reaction was to the photo.
John got the text and opened it up and said, "Oh, my God."
"It's Isaiah. He's dead. It's done."
And Valerie went ballistic.
She's like, "You're an idiot. Why would he send you that?
Why would they do that?
Like, they can come and get us."
The staged hit of Isaiah is extremely important
for the case because it's showing that
it wasn't just the thought or something that Valerie might have just wanted,
it's the investigators trying to show that
the intent was there.
Because she's actually telling him to get rid of
a photo of her estranged husband's supposed dead body.
Which wouldn't be normal behavior for someone who is not involved in a crime.
[narrator] Two police officers arrive at Valerie's door
and tell her that Isaiah's body was discovered at the marina.
[sobs]
They asked her if she knew anybody that was out to get me
or if there was, if I had
anybody that wanted to do any harm to me.
And she said, "No."
You know, crocodile teared her way through it.
She's supposed to be this decorated police officer.
She went to extreme lengths to have her husband taken out.
And not only me, a 14-year-old girl.
A child.
[narrator] The FBI has just informed Officer Valerie Cincinelli
that her husband Isaiah is dead.
Ten minutes later, my phone starts ringing, my cell.
And it's Valerie.
And then she text messages me.
And it says, "Pat please tell me it's not true, please tell me it's not true.
Oh, my God. I have to get Sal from school please tell me it's not true. Call me."
Then she sent me the same message again.
[narrator] What Valerie doesn't know is that her house is surrounded by FBI agents.
Valerie being an active duty police officer,
there's definitely a probability
that she would have a firearm in the house,
have access to it.
And the law enforcements decided, you know,
let's quickly take this down.
[narrator] Moments later, Valerie's door is broken down
and she's taken into custody.
I found out she was arrested when they were guarding me
'cause they wouldn't release me until
they found out that she was picked up and in custody.
When I finally got back to the house and I saw my son...
And I saw my son there...
I finally felt like he was safe.
He was good. He was finally where he should have been.
He was with me.
He was home.
Like every time I saw her in the news or whatever,
I always say, "How was this person in my family?"
And how did she take my brother's last name?
Our last name. Like, what?
It's... wild.
[narrator] Four weeks later, Valerie and Isaiah face off in court.
[Isaiah] As she screamed out, "Isaiah, you know me. I wouldn't do this."
I never looked her in the eyes.
I didn't even look at her or anybody in her family.
I had no care to.
I didn't even want to be in the same room as her.
[narrator] Valerie had told Isaiah she was getting ready to settle,
but now the divorce is put on hold.
[Isaiah] The day when the FBI came,
a week later we were supposed to sign the papers and be done and be divorced.
The judge was like, "Well, now what do we do?"
We couldn't proceed and finalize everything
because, now, her actions
caused, I believe it's called "Egregious fault"
where the severity of what she did
causes me to be entitled to even more.
And now they want me to wait until she gets out of jail
to finalize my divorce.
She was planning to not... for me not to be there,
for me to never even make it to have...
to get anything from her.
Valerie received Officer of the Month award multiple times.
She had caught an armed robber.
All great things I'm sure the community appreciated.
A person like me who's been in law enforcement for 19 years...
can't fathom why someone
with such a good career for themselves
going and moving in the fast path in the NYPD
would even consider going down this road.
The charges were conspiracy to commit murder on Isaiah,
conspiracy to commit murder on John DiRubba's daughter,
which is a teenage daughter.
Tampering with evidence.
That carries 20 as well so that's like 40 years.
[Isaiah] The DA, when I met with the district attorney
and everybody, prosecutors,
they told me, "We don't offer deals.
This is an ironclad case. This is in the bag."
Months go by. We're going to court.
Right? For the divorce.
And...
her criminal attorney slips and says,
"Oh, they're offering her a deal."
So, my matrimonial attorney was like,
"What are you talking about?"
[narrator] Valerie claims she never paid for a hitman
and the $7,000 she gave John was just a loan to buy gold.
And despite the success of the sting operation,
the prosecution has no physical evidence
to dispute this.
Not being able to verify
that that money was ever exchanged
is a problem.
You want to be able to say,
"Okay, on bank records on such-and-such date
$7,000 were, was taken out," or even half of that.
[narrator] Fearing there's not enough evidence to prove
conspiracy to commit murder, the DA chooses to settle.
Valerie took a plea deal for tampering with evidence.
And the charges of murder for hire were dismissed.
So, I'm like, "Well, what do you mean?
I thought you told me that you had everything squared off.
Everything was set. Like, I had nothing to worry about.
I don't want that.
Prosecutors asked for 60 months.
The judge, uh, gave Valerie 48 months.
It's crazy.
You tried to kill my son.
You tried to kill somebody else's child.
You know, how could you just be in there for 48 months.
That's ridiculous.
[Patrick] We don't know all the evidence
that the FBI had, but obviously the judge does.
And the judge said to her,
"There is no doubt in my mind,
you would have saw this through."
And, I'll never forget this.
The US attorney turns around and goes,
"Your Honor, we offered five years."
The judge looks at the US attorney and goes,
"You took this plea. I don't know why you took it.
If you had taken this in a different direction,
it would have been a totally different outcome.
As far as I'm concerned, the US attorney's office
really screwed me and my family.
And Isaiah, being the victim.
I feel like they didn't even take into account
the victims in this.
There's nobody else that's gonna suffer but me and John's daughter.
We have to worry every day when she gets out.
[Maryann] I don't think Isaiah feels like he's safe.
I don't think Isaiah will ever feel like he's safe.
I feel like for the rest of his life
he's always gonna feel that way.
[narrator] And the lasting effects of Valerie's crime
extend beyond Isaiah to his children.
[Patrick] Sofia is with her dad.
They didn't want Sal or Sophia seeing each other at all.
Because Sal being so young,
you know, they didn't want to, you know, have him really
find out too much of what's going on.
[Isaiah] Right now it's just a waiting game.
You know? I just have to wait and see.
When she gets out and finalizes divorce
and hopefully be able to move on with my son.
And give him the life that he should have always had.