As Jury Selection Begins For Valva Trial, Advocate For Thomas Speaks

CENTER MORICHES, NY — Jury selection began Wednesday for the trial of ex-NYPD Officer Michael Valva — whose son Thomas Valva, 8, froze to death in his Center Moriches garage in 2020.

Once that jury selection is complete, jury selection will begin for Valva's then-fiancée, Angela Pollina. Two separate juries will be chosen for the trial, according to Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice William Condon, who will preside. He made that ruling in Sept. 2021, when the trial was initially postponed.

Both defendants appeared in court Wednesday morning before Judge Condon. Pollina entered first, dressed in black, her dark hair long with a braid. Valva was brought in next, he wore a black jacket and a dress shirt with no tie.

The two sat as Condon told the attorneys for each that their clients had the right to be present during both jury selections; both attorneys waived that right.

In August 2021, Condon also ruled that a jury will be allowed to watch surveillance videos of the home where Thomas froze in the garage.

After Thomas' death, then-Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini unsealed five-count indictments against Valva and Pollina. Valva and Pollina were arrested Jan. 17, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, they face 25 years to life in prison. Both remain jailed without bail.

In February 2020, Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Kerriann Kelly painted a grim depiction of the day Thomas died; he was left overnight in the frigid garage with no blankets as temperatures outside plunged to 19 degrees, she said.

Also in the courtroom Wednesday was Dina Marie Marrazzo, administrator of the "Take Action: Justice for Thomas" Facebook page and organizer of many vigils for Thomas in previous months.

When asked what she hoped to see in the coming weeks at the trial, Marrazzo told Patch: "I want to see many others who also contributed to this tragic chain of events that allowed both Valva and Pollina to eventually kill one of the boys. All government emplyees are not above the law and need to also be held accountable. Child Protective Services, law guardians, lawyers, judges, school administration, all allowed this — and failed Thomas. Bad cops do bad things and if you protect them and are biased, you are guilty of murder, as well."

John LoTurco, attorney for Michael Valva and Anthony LaPinta, of Barket, Epstein, Aldea & LoTurco, LLP, released a statement regarding their client Valva.

“Michael Valva and our defense team are ready to proceed to jury selection and trial. We appreciate the complex challenges of jury selection considering the tragic nature surrounding the case, and the extensive negative pretrial publicity," the statement read. "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 statement continued: "At trial, if the jury scrutinizes the evidence without any preconceived opinions, and if they follow the law including delivering a verdict free of emotional appeal, then we are confident that a truly fair and impartial jury will understand that Michael Valva did not commit the murder of his son Thomas Valva, nor did he engage in conduct that created a grave risk of death to his son.”

Matthew Tuohy, attorney for Pollina, said his client is "maintaining her innocence, 100 percent. She is innocent."

The goal, he said, is to find a jury who will "look at the facts, and not let emotion take over."
"It's a terrible tragedy — especially when a young boy dies," he said. "People want blood — they want someone to be accountable. But she's innocent."

Pollina's attorney continued: "Were there bad decisions made? Yes. It was difficult to manage a household with all those children, children with disabilities. On the day this happened, she's got no part in it except trying to help him [Valva] and even he didn't intentionally do this. This is a tragedy."

At the time of Thomas' death, he and his two brothers, and Pollina's three girls, all lived in the home.

Jurors, Tuohy said, "have to follow the law and not let emotion take over, who have the intelligence to make the right decisions. There are people out there saying she should fry, and they don't even know the evidence yet. And this isn't me posturing or grand-standing. She's not even close to being guilty of murder."

Tuohy also said that while he wasn't "going to say it wasn't wrong for the boys to be in the garage at that time of year, it was [Valva's] actions, in cleaning the boy" that led to his death.

On Thursday, LoTurco responded to Tuohy's comment: "Our position is that the death of Thomas Valva was a tragic accident. At this stage of jury selection, we hope to secure a fair and an impartial jury who will carefully scrutinize the evidence at trial and ignore baseless conclusions presented outside the. courtroom. Our entire focus is one attempting to select a neutral jury rathen than procuring a self-serving narrative."

At a pre-trial hearing held in 2021 for Valva and Pollina before Condon in Riverhead, Suffolk County Police Detective Norberto Flores recounted the day he was called to the Valva home when a call came in about the son of "a member of service" Valva; the child had reportedly fallen in the driveway. Flores said he went straight to the hospital, where he heard that Thomas' temperature was recorded as 76.1 degrees F.

Valva told Flores that he turned his head and when he looked back, he saw Thomas "face-down on the driveway," and said he thought maybe his shoelace had become untied, Flores said. Valva told Flores that when he got to Thomas, he had scrapes on his face and was crying, and had "pooped his pants." He then took Thomas through the garage and into the basement bathroom to "clean him up," Valva told Flores.

Thomas, Valva told him, was "complaining about being cold and was a bit wobbly on his feet," so the shower became a warm bath, Flores said. "His condition worsened so he went to get Angela," Flores said.

When he returned, Valva said Thomas has become unconscious and was slumped over, so he took him out of the bathtub, wrapped him in blankets, and brought him into the living area, Flores said.

"Then he stopped breathing," and Valva called 911 and began CPR, Flores said.

A recording of the 911 call Valva made was also released.

The call was played during court proceedings at the time. "I need an ambulance immediately,"

Valva was heard saying. "My son's not breathing."

Valva was heard telling the 911 operator that Thomas had fallen down on concrete on the way to the bus and "banged his head." He said he'd put Thomas in the shower to "help him out a little bit."

In the recording, Valva was heard counting, as if doing chest compressions during CPR and telling the operator that Thomas' stomach was "filling up a lot" with air.

Valva's defense has maintained that Pollina was the one who put the boys in the freezing garage while he was at work, something Tuohy said was "not true." He said he believed Thomas' death was a tragic accident and he did not want to paint a narrative that depicted the "dad as a devil. . .he tried to save Thomas." But, Tuohy said, he believes Valva "thought the kids needed tough love — because he [Thomas] was on the spectrum, he needed a harder hand. That was the mistake there."

At Valva and Pollina's arraignments, Newsday reported, Assistant District Attorney Laura Newcombe said a recording from the home on Jan. 17 included a child asking: "Why can't Thomas walk?" According to Newcombe, Pollina said, "because he's hypothermic," adding: "When you're washed with cold water and it's freezing you get hypothermia," Newsday reported.

The post added that, according to Newcombe, Valva said: "He keeps face planting on the concrete."

According to Newsay, Pollina then said, "You know why he's falling." Valva then said, according to Newcombe: "Because he's cold, boo-[expletive]-hoo."

Thomas and his brother Anthony, 10, were undernourished, begging for food, and foraging through the garbage at school because they were so hungry, the assistant Suffolk County district attorney said in February 2020. Teachers asked Pollina and Valva to send more food to school with the boys, but that did not happen, she said.

The boys were sent to school with their hands and cheeks red and cold to the touch, Kelly said. By their second year in the East Moriches School District, the boys were wearing diapers that were often soiled, she said. They were told not to see the nurse and did not, because they were "in fear" of Pollina and their father, she said. The boys, she added, slept in a room with no access to a bathroom and when they soiled themselves, were punished by being made to sleep on the cold cement floor of the basement, with no blankets, no mattress, no pillows and no extra clothes to keep them warm.

Videos taken in the house a day and a half before Thomas died showed both boys in the garage, with Thomas shaking from the cold, saying he needed to use the bathroom, and looking at the camera "with pleading eyes for someone to help him," Kelly said.

On the night he died, it was 19 degrees outside, and he was left in the freezing garage with no blankets, she said.

Zubko-Valva had pleaded for help on her Twitter page before her son died. In 2020, Zubko-Valva filed a $200 million wrongful death suit. She has been joined by scores of supporters at rallies and marches since her son's death, demanding "Justice for Thomas."

Zubko-Valva did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

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.

According to Manhattan Attorney Jon Nurinsberg of Norinsberg Law, representing Zubka-Valva, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman has ruled that portions of the suit accusing Suffolk County and Child Protective Services could proceed. He allowed both federal and state claims against Suffolk County and state law claims to continue against the school district, Norinsberg said.
"Tommy's death was not only foreseeable, but completely preventable," according to the complaint.

Zubko-Valva repeatedly warned those named in the suit for three years that the boys were being "tortured, beaten, starved," as well as suffering abuse, the complaint said and she said she provided "overwhelming, irrefutable evidence of the graphic, horrific abuse, including documentary proof, audio recordings and transcriptions, photographs and medical reports."

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney's office said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Zubko-Valva's goal is to see "Tommy's Law" passed. It would improve how custody and mandatory child abuse reporting is handled and investigated, as well as create a foundation that would help protect other children like Tommy, her attorney said.