Valva Murder Trial Set To Begin Wednesday With Jury Selection In Riverhead

Thomas Valva was so hungry that he scrounged for food in trash cans at his elementary school. Before his 2020 death from hypothermia, the 8-year-old boy had missing hair, was bruised and walked with a limp. On surveillance video seized from his Center Moriches home, Thomas shivered visibly on the cement floor of his father’s garage in the dead of winter. There was no blanket to keep him warm.

These are some of the allegations that Suffolk County prosecutors have made and are expected to present to jurors during the upcoming murder trial of Thomas’ father, Michael Valva, an ex-NYPD officer, and the cop’s ex-fiancee, Angela Pollina. They both have pleaded not guilty.

Jury selection is expected to begin Wednesday in Riverhead to select two separate juries to consider the case, more than 2 ½ years after Thomas' death in a house on Bittersweet Lane in Center Moriches prosecutors have labaled a "house of horrors."

Valva, 43, and Pollina, 45, pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and child endangerment in Thomas' death and the alleged abuse of his older brother Andrew, who was 10- years- old at the time.

Thomas, who was on the autism spectrum, died on Jan. 17, 2020, after he allegedly was forced by Valva and Pollina to sleep in an unheated garage in 19-degree weather, prosecutors have said.

Thomas' body temperature was just 76.1 degrees before he died, prosecutors have said. His cause of death was ruled as hypothermia. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Suffolk Supreme Court Justice William Condon, who is presiding over the case, has said the trial will take an estimated three months, including about a month to select two juries, each consisting of 12 jurors and six alternates. The prosecution has estimated it will call at least 36 witnesses to testify.

The judge ruled earlier that both defendants will be on trial at the same time, but each defendant will have its own jury decide their guilt or innocence, despite a defense push for the defendants to be tried separately.

In the walk-up to the trial, defense attorneys have cast blame on each other's clients.

Pollina's lawyer has alleged that it was Valva who sprayed the child with a cold water hose shortly before his death, and Valva's lawyers have said it was Pollina who forced Thomas to sleep in the garage.

Valva defense attorneys John LoTurco and Anthony LaPinta, in a written statement ahead of jury selection, said their team is ready to go to trial.

“We appreciate the complex challenges of jury selection considering the tragic nature surrounding the case, and the extensive negative pretrial publicity," the statement said. "However, we are hopeful that we can select a fair and impartial jury in Suffolk County by having thoughtful, honest and meaningful conversations with prospective jurors."

The attorneys said they expect the jurors to examine the evidence carefully and the panel to find Valva didn't murder his son or put him at risk of death.

The attorneys didn't say whether Valva would take the stand.

LoTurco, in earlier comments, has called Thomas' death "a nightmarish accidental death and clearly not a murder."

On the night before Thomas died, LoTuruco has said, the door separating the garage and access to the home was unlocked and there was a large electric space heater that was turned on inside the garage.

LoTurco also has cast Pollina as the "wicked, cruel stepmother" who "despised those autistic children" and "compelled them to be in the garage."

Matthew Tuohy, the defense attorney for Pollina, said his client will take the stand.

“She’s 100% going to testify, 100%,” Tuohy told Newsday in a recent interview. “She’s got nothing to hide, nothing to hold back. It’s important that they hear from her.”

Tuohy, repeating claims he’s made in court papers, said his client is innocent.

“What really happened is, the father took the boy outside, hosed off the boy outside by himself," he said. "That killed him. My client wasn’t even around. My client wasn’t even around when he did that. It’s not like she could have stopped him.”

Tuohy has said Valva controlled his boys with ex-wife JustinaZubko-Valva, who was in the midst of a contentious divorce and custody battle at the time of Thomas’ death, while Pollina looked after her daughters from previous relationships.

“Did Angela Pollina kill this boy? Or was she part of it? And I think people with common sense will look at the facts and say absolutely not. Were there mistakes made? Yes.”

A spokeswoman for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, whose office is prosecuting the case, said the office does not comment on upcoming trials.

Because of their antagonistic defenses, the case could not be decided by a single jury, the judge ruled previously. The setup is rare, according to legal experts, but not unprecedented.

“It certainly presents legal issues and logistical issues having two juries at one time,” said Fred Klein, a former veteran Nassau County prosecutor who has handled high-profile cases, including the prosecution of Amy Fisher, and now teaches at Hofstra University's law school.

“The prosecution has to make sure they’re preparing their witnesses thoroughly," Klein said. "For the prosecution, that could be a nightmare if the witnesses say something in front of the jury that they’re not supposed to say.”

Defense attorney Steven Politi, who has experience representing a client accused of causing the death of a child, said the court faces a hurdle in finding jurors who haven’t made up their minds about the case, which has been covered extensively in the news media.

“I think the biggest challenge that the lawyers are going to have is finding a jury that doesn’t already have the DA office’s narrative in their mind,” Politi said. “There’s been so much press and so many negative facts put forth, are you going to be able to find a jury in Suffolk County? Obviously, the sympathy that every human being is going to have is through the roof.”

Politi represented Thomas Murphy, who was convicted for the 2018 drunken driving crash that killed 12-year-old Boy Scout Andrew McMorris. He unsuccessfully sought a change of venue for the trial, a request that lawyers for Valva and Pollina also could make once jury selection has started.

“There’s been so many extra judicial comments, things that have taken place outside the courtroom, and I worry for all defense attorneys in these high-profile cases,” Politi said.

The prosecution’s evidence has been previewed, in part, during the February 2020 arraignments of both defendants and during a week of pre-trial hearings in May 2021 to determine whether key evidence against Valva and Pollina -- including audio, video surveillance and the clothing Thomas was wearing at the time of his death -- would be admissible at the trial.

The defense argued that it should be thrown out on the grounds it was obtained unlawfully. The judge ruled in the prosecution’s favor.

The prosecution played a dramatic 911 call made by Valva on the morning of his son's death at the hearing, and called several witnesses to testify, including Suffolk County police officers and detectives, a housekeeper and a neighbor of the former couple. Valva's divorce attorney also testified.

At the former couple's arraignment, lead prosecutor Kerri Ann Kelly, who is the chief of the Suffolk District Attorney's Office Major Crime Bureau, described video evidence culled from the home's extensive indoor surveillance system showing Thomas and Anthony "banished to the garage once again" two days before his death. Thomas was "shaking in the freezing cold air and clearly exhibiting signs that he needs to use the bathroom in 19-degree weather," said Kelly, who said Thomas was "looking into the Nest camera with pleading eyes for someone to help him."

Pollina, according to the prosecutor at their arraignment, "took a clip of the freezing children from the Nest video and sent it to Michael Valva, who was at work at the time. "Pollina and Valva then had a text message conversation about whether Thomas was going to school the next morning. Valva replied, according to prosecutors: "I have zero clothing for him. [Expletive] the piece of [expletive] Thomas. He’s not going anywhere."

Other video footage, according to prosecutors, shows Valva "beating one of his children with a closed fist while screaming at him" and "Thomas begging to be let out of his room to use the bathroom."

In audio from the home from the morning Thomas died, prosecutors alleged Valva yelled about Thomas having an accident. "[Expletive] moron. I told him to stand up. Wash yourself. What does he do? He head dives into the [expletive] concrete."

A child was heard saying Thomas couldn't walk and "Angela explained that Thomas is hypothermic," Kelly said at the arraignment, adding that Valva told Pollina that Thomas had "face-planted twice in the garage."

Pollina then asked why he fell, according to prosecutors. "Cuz he was cold. Boo-[expletive]-hoo. Now he’s a bloody [expletive] mess," Valva replied, according to prosecutors who added that Pollina only expressed concern that Valva not yell so neighbors wouldn't hear.

Thomas’ death resulted in a state review of Suffolk County’s Child Protective Services, which mandated the agency to create a corrective action plan and ordered that CPS caseworkers undergo better investigative training. CPS ultimately instituted reforms, including the retraining of child protective caseworkers, reduced caseloads, increased supervision of caseworkers, and requiring them to file case notes earlier and encouraging them to seek legal counsel if families deny access to children who may be in harm's way.

Following Thomas' death, a Newsday examination of thousands of pages of documents – including court transcripts from divorce and child custody proceedings in both Nassau and Suffolk counties, Child Protective Services reports from several caseworkers, and assessments from court-appointed lawyers and the East Moriches school district – showed that various entities designed to protect children ignored multiple warning signs that Thomas and his brothers were in danger.

Thomas' death occurred while Valva and his then-estranged wife were locked in contentious divorce and child custody proceedings. Zubko-Valva, a New York City correction officer, had married Valva in 2004, but by late 2015, the father of three boys had “abandoned” the family, moving out of their Valley Stream condo, Zubko-Valva alleged in court papers. Zubko-Valva, in the papers, also accused her husband of cheating with Pollina. Valva filed for divorce. Both lodged child abuse claims against one another, and Valva was ultimately granted custody of their three sons.

Zubko-Valva, who had been a vocal presence at many of the initial criminal court proceedings and attended virtually during the coronavirus pandemic when in-person court was closed, later stopped attending proceedings. She declined to comment for this story through her civil attorney Jon Norinsberg, who has filed a $200 million federal lawsuit against Suffolk County and several county Child Protective Services employees for a series of alleged failures before his death. The civil lawsuit is in the discovery phase.

“She does not like to speak to the press regarding this case; She wants the case to speak for itself,” Norinsberg said. Norinsberg said he did not expect his client or her eldest son Anthony to be called by prosecutors to testify against Valva and Pollina during the criminal trial.

“There’s overwhelming evidence of their guilt and the evidence is on camera, in addition to their false statements to medical personnel and their false statements to police,” said Norinsberg. “I think this case can be very convincingly tried without the need for testimony from my client or her children.”

It’s unclear whether Zubko-Valva will attend the trial. “It may be too painful for her to watch,” Norinsberg said.

Michael Valva and Angelina Pollina at their arraignment in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on Feb. 6, 2020. Credit: James Carbone

Thomas, who was on the autism spectrum, died on Jan. 17, 2020, after he allegedly was forced by Valva and Pollina to sleep in an unheated garage in 19-degree weather, prosecutors have said.

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Thomas' body temperature was just 76.1 degrees before he died, prosecutors have said. His cause of death was ruled as hypothermia. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Undated photograph of Thomas Valva Credit: Courtesy Justyna Zubko-Valva