'Irate' Valva Threatened To Handcuff Son, 8, Over M&Ms: Witness

CENTER MORICHES, NY — When Michael Valva got a call from his son Thomas' school about an incident involving a jar of missing M&Ms, the then-NYPD officer got very angry, a witness told the courtroom at Valva's ongoing murder trial Wednesday.

Edward Concilio, the cousin through marriage of Angela Pollina, Valva's then-fiance, had been living in the basement at 11 Bittersweet Lane about four days a week for more than a year due to a job nearby, he said.

When the call came in, Concilio, Valva and Pollina were in the kitchen, he told Assistant District Attorney James Scahill.

Valva, he said, was "quite irate. He said, 'If he wants to act like a perp, I'm going to treat him like a perp.' He said he was going to get his handcuffs."

Concilio then stepped in front of Valva and said: "'He's a kid. You're not going to handcuff him." Valva then stopped, Concilio said.

Valva is charged in the death of his 8-year-old son Thomas Valva, who froze to death in his Center Moriches garage in 2020 when the temperature outside was just 19 degrees. Valva, along with his then-fiance Angela Pollina, who will have a separate trial, were arrested Jan. 24, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, each faces 25 years to life in prison. Both have pleaded not guilty and remain jailed without bail.

Thomas died of hypothermia, according to the Suffolk County Medical Office's determination. His body temperature was 76.1 degrees, 22 degrees lower than it should have been, prosecutors said.

As for the M & Ms that sparked Valva's anger, on Tuesday, the boys' elementary school principal said Thomas had taken the large jar not to eat them or steal them, but because they were Halloween colored, and Halloween had passed, so they were the wrong color for the season. Thomas, all agreed, was a "rule follower."

Testimony continued Wednesday, beginning with Concilio, who said when he stayed at the home, he lived in a bedroom in the basement. The period during which he stayed on Bittersweet Lane spanned from November 2018 to January 2020.

Valva, he said, worked as a police officer in New York City except for the summer of 2019, when he was injured on the job and not working for about four months. He also worked part-time at a library, defense attorney Anthony La Pinta said.

On the day Thomas died, Jan. 17, 2020, Concilio said he got up at about 7 a.m., showered and dressed, and had a cup of coffee in the kitchen with Pollina, who was sitting at the island, "very calm" and reading the paper, he said. He left for work at about 8:50 a.m., he said.

Concilio said he heard the usual "normal" commotion of the kids getting on the bus upstairs.
On the day Thomas died, Concilio said, he went upstairs about 8:45 a.m. to have a cup of coffee and noted that the cleaning lady had come. No children were upstairs, he said, which was not unusual at that time as they'd left for school. When he left for work he saw two cars in the garage, a black Traverse, which belonged to Pollina, and a silver sedan belonging to Valva.

Concilio, who was working at MacArthur Airport, got a call at about 6 p.m. that night from Pollina's phone. However, it wasn't Pollina, but a neighbor calling. "She said, 'I've got some bad news. There's been an accident. Thomas fell and he didn't make it.'"

Concilio said, "What do you mean he didn't make it?" The neighbor said Thomas had fallen while running for the bus, and been taken to the hospital, where he died.

When he got back to the house, Concilio said he put his arms around Pollina and Valva, offered his condolences, and then asked what happened; they said Thomas had tripped and hit his head.

Concilio said he hadn't seen Thomas on the morning of Jan. 17, but he had seen him the 16th leaving the garage and walking out with a garbage bag that he put in the pail. Thomas tripped that day but got right up, he said.

When asked if the kitchen door that led to the garage had tape on it — something the defense has maintained Valva put there so the boys, who were forced to live in frigid garage with no insultion or heat, would have access to the house — Concilio said no.

Concilio said he saw both Thomas and his older brother in the garage before Christmas 2019, when he was giving out gifts to all the children. Pollina, he said, called Valva to ask if he could give Anthony and his brother the gifts and he agreed. The boys looked at Pollina for permission to take the gifts, he said.

The garage, Concilio said, had windows that were covered with cardboard so no one could see inside.

Once in the garage, Concilio saw two tents, sleeping bags, and a small mattress, he said.

Another time, he said, he was working on the front door and he heard a boy's voice from inside the garage, asking to go to the bathroom. He called Pollina, who wasn't home, and asked: "What's going on?"

She responded: "That's Michael's responsibility. Get with him."

Valva was asleep, Concilio said, so he went back to fixing the door. He heard no more noise.

Concilio described seeing Valva bringing sandwiches and protein shakes to the garage in the morning. He also said he'd heard Pollina and Valva discussing the toileting concerns regarding the boys, who were autistic and had accidents, including the older boy, who was "peeing his bed."

Once, Concilio said, he saw Valva hose his older son down on the patio; he was watching through the kitchen slider when he hosed down his son, who was in his underwear.

After Thomas died, Concilio said he stayed in the Bittersweet Lane home until the following Thursday. When he was in the airport, he got a call from Valva, the last time he spoke with him. Valva, he said, "was in a panic," saying something was happening in his home. Valva and Pollina were arrested that Friday, Jan. 24, 2020.

Cross-examined by defense attorney Anthony La Pinta, Concilio said Pollina was a "stickler" for tidiness. He noticed she was "very aggressive" with the boys and was the "disciplinarian" of the children. He said he'd heard her yell and would "fly off the handle abruptly," with no sign of it coming, something Concilio said he found "concerning."

When asked if he'd ever discussed it with Pollina, Concilio admitted he'd said nothing.

Thomas and his brother, he said, were quiet. He said for the most part, the problems were not between the six children, but between "Angela and the two boys."

The urination and defecation around the house due to Thomas' and his brother's incontinence were a "trigger," for Pollina, he said.

When asked if he knew before December 2019, that the boys were sleeping in the garage, he said, "There were signs." Those signs, Concilio said, included Valva bringing food into the garage. He said he first noticed the boys might be living in the garage in April 2019.

Pollina, Concilio said, was the person who routinely got all the children ready for school, not Valva.

Concilio added that Valva had been having financial problems, something that was causing him stress, as well as the stress due to the incontinence, which was a trigger for Pollina.

Concilio suggested that maybe Valva should leave. Valva told him he had nowhere to go, Concilio said.

Also testifying Wednesday was East Moriches School psychologist Remee Emin, who detailed the decline of the boys, who began attending the district in 2017.

At first, she said, Thomas was "very excited. He was always excited to introduce people to his brother. They were both social, playful. They were happy."

Emin said while the boys at first had healthy skin and were of normal weight, that changed. In time, she said, during counseling sessions, both boys were hungry, so hungry that Thomas would cry so hard that unless she provided snacks right away, she could not continue with the session. "Thomas is the one who would break down," she said.

She described the older Valva boy's weight loss, which at one point reached 20 pounds since the physical before school began.

Another time, in her office, the school nurse examined Thomas, who had been complaining of difficulty sitting down, wincing. "His bottom had a handprint," Emin said. "He said 'his dad' inflicted the injury."

Emin described CPS calls and visits due to the weight loss, the incontinence issues — which led to both boys wearing pullups — the escalating outbursts, the fact that the boys were left only in the care of their young sisters or home alone, and the hunger. "They looked emaciated," she said.

At one open school night, Emin mentioned the boys' weight loss to Valva, who said they were more active than they had ever been. "I asked him, 'Where's the muscle tone?'" Emin said.

Thomas, she said, had been told he had to wear pullups "because he was a baby," and that he had to sleep in a crib "because he was a baby."

In January 2019, she said, the older Valva boy had a bruise on his arm that also "looked like a handprint."

Asked about the boys' appearance as the months continued, Emin's voice faltered: "Their hands were always red. I can't describe it enough to tell you how vivid it was. It's an image that haunts all of us."

Testimony continues Thursday in Riverhead.