'Pure Evil': Angela Pollina Found Guilty In Death Of Thomas Valva, 8

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Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney spoke to reporters after the verdict, thanking his trial team, including Assistant District Attorney Kerriann Kelly, the jury, and members of the Suffolk County Police Department’s homicide division.

“We are gratified by the jury’s verdict,” he said.

Tierney added: “The jury has spoken. The story of Michael Valva is at an end. The story of Angela Pollina is coming to an end. But the story of Thomas and Anthony Valva, that continues. We will continue to look at and try to learn lessons from what happened in this case to and to take steps to make sure something like this never, ever happens again in Suffolk County.”

Tierney said the incredible thing about the Valva/Pollina case, unlike other cases, was that there were videos and text messages. “When you marry those two together, it really created a compelling story of what happened to those poor boys,” he said.

When asked about school officials who tried repeatedly to reach out to Child Protective Services and what can be done, Tierney said the system “didn’t work,” and he plans to use the power of his office to take a look at things and at the very least have recommendations so that something like this does not happen again. One power of his office includes investigation by a grand jury, as well as subpoenas and charging individuals. “Everything is on the table,” Tierney said, adding that he has the power of investigation. “We’re going to follow the evidence and see where that evidence takes us.”

About Pollina taking the stand, Tierney said the first trial didn’t go so well and the defense employed certain strategies. But, he said, the defense, given the strength of the prosecution’s case, “had their work cut out for them. . . I saw the facts of this case as what was a positive for us.”

“The cruelty that Thomas and his brother had to endure because of this defendant’s callous and
selfish conduct is abhorrent, and, thankfully, the jury clearly agreed,” said Tierney. “Her treatment of these children was nothing short of pure evil. This defendant will now
face the consequences of her actions and will experience her own imprisonment just as she forced
these boys to live imprisoned in a freezing garage. Unlike Thomas and his brother, Pollina deserves this punishment.”

One juror, speaking about Pollina after the verdict, said: “How she treated those children, how she exiled them, how she did not give them just the basics that they needed, and then to watch them on camera as they suffered, as a mother that just wasn’t anything most of us could contend with.” A mother of teenagers, she said she had tears in her eyes, listening to the testimony.

“She admitted to eveything,” another juror said after the verdict. “There was no other way to find her other than guilty — there just wasn’t. Her words, her tone, the text messages, the videos. There was no other way to find her. She’s not a good person — and she is guilty,” she said.

A third juror said he believed she was innocent until the end, and kept an open mind during the trial, but when he heard that the testimony read back Friday from medical examiner Dr. Michael Kaplan, who said it couldn’t have been just the hosing down in the backyard alone but also the garage floor, which Pollina was involved with, that caused Thomas temperature to drop to 76.1 degrees, that’s when he reached a decision.

That juror said he had two dogs that would poop and pee in the house and he created a doggie door.”If my dog had gone out and died from the cold, I would be responsible,” he said.

Gino Cali, the father of Angela Pollina’s youngest daughter, also spoke, his eyes filled with tears. “It’s the verdict I wanted — but it doesn’t bring Tommy back,” he said.

Pollina is the former fiancée of Michael Valva, an ex-NYPD officer convicted of murder in the death of his 8-year-old son Thomas, who died of hypothermia after being forced to sleep in his father’s frigid garage

At 3:05 p.m., the jury announced that verdict had been reached. Tierney entered the courtroom to await the jury’s decision. Also present in the courtroom were jurors from the previous trial of Michael Valva.

The jury reached their decision after six hours of deliberation, one hour on Thursday and five, on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the jury asked for a read-back of testimony from Suffolk County chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Kaplan regarding the definition of hypothermia; Thomas, he said, was in Stage 4, with a core body temperature of under 77 degrees.

Kaplan said while dousing a boy already in hypothermia with cold water in icy temperatures outside could advance the stages of hypothermia, it would not cause a drop in temperature to 76.1. Sleeping for an extended period of time in a cold garage could do that, he said. Children, he said, are more susceptible to hypothermia.

The jury, at 11 a.m., also asked for a read-back of the charge of second-degree murder and to define “depraved indifference.”

On Thursday, Assistant District Attorney Kerriann Kelly fiercely delivered her scathing closing arguments.

Kelly painted a vivid picture of Pollina, saying she “acted in concert” with Valva and was responsible for brandishing cruel punishment — forcing the boys to sleep in a freezing garage, go without food, and attend school in urine-soaked clothes, sneakers and pull-ups — all because of their “sin of being autistic,” she said.

Valva and Pollina were arrested Jan. 24, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Each faced 25 years to life in prison, and both pleaded not guilty.

Jurors convicted Valva of second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The boy froze to death in the Center Moriches garage. His father was sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars.

The prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Pollina knew the risks to Thomas and consciously disregarded them, Kelly said, forcing them to live in a frigid garage in urine-soaked pull ups, because of her rules.

“We all know about the risks of cold,” Kelly said, adding that’s why people bundle children up in boots and mittens and hats. Even Valva texted Pollina when it was snowing on Jan. 4 and said, “I hope the boys don’t get hypothermia,” she said.

Pollina sent videos of the boys on the floor in the garage; they were curled up on the floor “because they are freezing to death— and in Thomas’s case, he did,” she said. Pollina evinced depraved indifference to human life, Kelly said.

Not giving Thomas a blanket after she said Thomas was hypothermic was depraved, not taking them out of the garage when she knew how cold it was depraved, and not calling 911 until an hour later was depraved, Kelly said.

“She failed to do what any human being under the same circumstances would do, with an 8-year-old in that state, witnessing that complete deterioration of him,” Kelly said.
But even bringing him a blanket in the basement, “after he had gone over the cliff from life to lifelessness, was way too late in the game. It’s liked pouring a bucket of water on a raging inferno — too little, too late,” Kelly said.

Dr. Kaplan said while bringing someone a blanket if they were in Stage 1 of hypothermia might help, it would not help in Stage 4.

And, Kelly said, Thomas backpack was still in the garage a week later, on the floor untouched, when Valva and Pollina were arrested, warm in their bed. His books, his lunch box, his handwriting, were all there in the backpack. “Right where it alway was — where he lived, in the garage,” Kelly said. “If you think she’d didn’t have utter disregard for his life, just think about that.”

Defense attorney Matthew Tuohy had tears in his eyes has maintained Pollina’s innocence from the start of the proceedings..

“When we deal with the death of a child, the emotions impact everyone,” he said.

But, he said, “Convicting Angela Pollina of murder is not going to make this right. Angela Pollina did not murder this boy.”

Tuohy has long maintained that Valva murdered Thomas. Pollina took the stand to “own up” to her bad actions and behavior that was cruel and “b—–,” he said.
Using a sports analogy, his goal has been to “stay in the play” and focus solely on Pollina’s actions on the day Thomas died.

“All that stuff that happened before, that’s being used to vilify Angela Pollina, so you hate her,” Tuohy said. “There’s no crime for someone being mean, making bad judgments, being verbally abusive. There’s no statute for that.”

He added: “They want you to believe she acted with depraved indifference. That’s not the case. Convicting her of a murder she didn’t commit doesn’t take us to the light — it keeps us in the dark.”

Thomas died of hypothermia, and it was Valva, he said, who brought him into the yard and hosed him in the frigid cold.

Pollina, he said, “could be mean, she could be a disciplinarian, she could exile them in the garage, but she had no part in that. That was all the father.”

When Thomas was cold and injured after falling outside repeatedly on the cold cement, Pollina went to get blankets and a space heater. Valva put him in the warm bath or shower that could have been fatal, not Pollina, Tuohy said.

“Angela Pollina did not bring the boy out in the freezing cold. She did not hose him off. She did not bring downstairs and put him in the bath or warm shower. Michael Valva did that, and that caused the boy, who is in various stages of hypothermia, to go into cardiac arrest,” Tuohy said.

The prosecution, he said, has not met their “burden of proof, by any means. There’s lots of bad talk about my client. And there’s lots of bad behavior, and we’re not going to whitewash that.”

On the morning he died, Tuohy said Pollina didn’t believe Thomas was in grave danger and when she saw he wasn’t responding, did run for a phone to call 911, he said.

“We don’t convict people of murder because we hate them, because they are b——,” he told the jury. “I have faith that you’ll look at her and say she’s not guilty of murder.”

Teachers and the principal from East Moriches Elementary School have offered emotional testimony, as they did in Valva’s trial, describing the boys, who came to school bruised, soaked in urine, starving, and always cold. Detectives and others who responded to the home have also testified.

During Valva’s trial, one witness, a plumber, said he saw Pollina throw a child down the stairs. There was also evidence shown of texts reflecting Pollina’s frustration with the incontinence of Thomas and his older brother and her stating that she did not want them in the house. Valva’s defense team painted an image of Valva as a man stressed over finances, who had nowhere to go with his boys if he had to leave the home he shared with Pollina.

Thomas and his brother were forced to sleep in the frigid garage as temperatures outside plummeted to 19 degrees, prosecutors said. When he died, Thomas’ body temperature was 76.1 degrees, 20 degrees lower than it should have been.

Thomas’ mother Justyna Zubko-Valva pleaded for help on her Twitter page before her son died. In 2020, Zubko-Valva filed a $200 million wrongful death suit.

Zubko-Valva has not responded to requests for comment.

In June, a judge ruled that portions of the $200 million lawsuit filed by Zubko-Valva after Thomas died can move forward, a judge ruled.

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