Valva: DA Argues 'Depraved' Murderer; Defense Seeks Lesser Charge

RIVERHEAD, NY — During her closing arguments Thursday in the murder trial of ex-NYPD officer Michael Valva, whose son Thomas, 8, froze to death in his father's garage in 2020, prosecutors showed a photo, taken by the boy's third grade teacher, on Jan. 16, 2020.

In the photo, Thomas was wearing a sweatshirt and smiling, giving a thumbs up, his hands a deep, deep red — because, prosecutors have said, he and his brother, who both had autism, were forced to live in the garage despite freezing temperatures, wear pullups, come to school in urine-soaked clothing, and were always starving and crying for food, searching for crumbs on the floor and in the trash.

"Coldness was pervasive in Thomas' life," said Assistant District Attorney Keriann Kelly, noting his red, chapped hands and cheeks.

But he was smiling "despite the evil, cruel household" he had to return to when he left school at night. "He was an 8-year-old boy who had not lost hope, because of the care he received from his teachers."

Next, Kelly showed a photo of Thomas at his autopsy the next day. His body was thin, bones protruding, face covered with bruises, including two large bumps on his forehead.

"He was dead just 24 hours later," she said.

Kelly calmly, but with a voice filled with steady resolve, laid out the reasons why she believes the jury should find Valva guilty of second-degree murder, as well as four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Valva, along with his then-fianceé 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 pleaded not guilty and remain jailed without bail.

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

Defense leads with closing arguments

During his closing arguments, defense attorney John LoTurco said Judge William Condon allowed for the jury to find Valva guilty of lesser charges, including criminally negligent homicide — with a lesser sentence— which he said the defense has long maintained should have been the initial charge.

LoTurco said he agreed Valva should be found guilty of the four counts of endangering the welfare of a child, but that prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what he called the "overzealous, overreach" charge of second-degree murder, which would mean Valva showed "depraved indifference" in Thomas' death. The charge would mean that Valva showed "utter disregard" for Thomas' life, did not care that he caused him "egregious harm" and did not care that Thomas died.

"That's simply not the case," LoTurco said.

He pointed out that regardless of his "horrible words," he tried to save Thomas with CPR, and called 911. According to LoTurco, Valva provided his boys with a home, attended school events and PTA conferences, IEPs and field days, and brought them to religious services and doctor appoinments.

Putting his hand on Valva's shoulder, LoTurco said, "Michael did not want Thomas to die," despite what he called negligent parenting and the horrible things he'd shouted at his son.

"Michael loved Thomas," LoTurco said. "He is not asking you to absolve him. He will have to live with his the weaknesses and inactions that led to Thomas' death for the rest of his life."

He urged the jury to focus on the facts and evidence, not on the "tsunami of emotions and sympathy", describing the prosecution's case.

LoTurco then said the district attorney wasnt to "demonize Michael Valva as a cold-blooded monster, a werewolf who had no love in his heart."

He acknowledged the words the jury heard Valva use as his son was dying, including "f------ moron," "Boo f------ hoo," when he said Thomas was face-planting because he was cold, and "he's catatonic." But he asked jurors to place the words in the context of what Valva was going through — facing severe financial problems and stress caused by a "manipulative, cheating" Pollina, who he said was triggered by the boys' incontinence issues.

Based on the "atrocious" behavior shown by Valva and Pollina, as humans, he said it was impossible not to feel angry.

"But as jurors, it's a different story," LoTurco said. "I don't expect you to be androids or robots. He said awful, horrible things to Thomas on Jan. 17, 2020 and that's going to haunt him for the rest of his life."

But comparing the jury to Lady Liberty, he asked them to weigh the evidence without sympathy or extremism.

Laying out the reasons why Valva should not face the murder charge, LoTurco said, "This charge has nothing to with Thomas' heartbreaking and tragic death."

Thomas' older brother, he said, slept in the same garage and yet got up and went to school the next day. He pointed to witnesses that said the boys were not underweight, and that Thomas was in the 70th percentile for his age in terms of weight. Much of the testimony, what he called "90 percent" was about the older Valva boy and Pollina's growing frustration with his actions, based the behavior he exhibited due to his autism.

LoTurco said "only in the end" were the boys kept in the garage with no pillows or blankets and blamed their banishment, which he said caused Valva to say she was exiling the older boy in texts, on Pollina.

"She was a dictator in the house," who controlled the Nest videos, he said.

Valva didn't leave, LoTurco said, because he felt trapped and didn't want to lose his children, as financial concerns mounted.

"It was the perfect storm that led to Michael Valva's unfortunate anger and outburst on Jan. 17," LoTurco said. He added that the drop in temperature outside had been sudden and Valva didn't realize how cold the garage would be, said there was no proof of subzero temperatures in the garage, and said there was no proof that Valva had actually "hosed down" Thomas, but instead, told him to clean himself with cold water from a Sprite bottle.

Also, because Thomas fell repeatedly on the cement pavers and has sustained bruises on his forehead, he was "focused on head trauma" and not hypothermia. He repeated what defense attorney Anthony La Pinta had said during opening arguments, that Thomas died from a biological reaction to Valva putting Thomas, who was cold, into a warm bath. He claimed that Thomas died from "vasoconstriction," causing blood flow away from his organs and to his skin and causing cardiac arrest, not hypothermia.

"Michael did not want Thomas to die," LoTurco said again. "Michael loved his son."

On the day Thomas died, Valva told Pollina that temperatures plunged from 60 degrees to 21 degrees . "That's too cold for my blood," LoTurco said Valva told her, not realizing how cold the garage would be.

Just days earlier, Valva texted Pollina that it was cold and snowing, and the "boys better not get hypothermia," LoTurco said. "He did not want Thomas to die."

He also said Valva did not realize Thomas was in physical distress, and was focused on his head trauma. Valva was heard shouting, 'F------ moron . Stand up! I can't send him to school now, he's a bloody f------ mess.'"

Valva was also heard shouting at Thomas, "He's f------- catatonic! Are you alive," three times and slapping him. When Pollina asked what he was doing, he said, "I'm going to suffocate him," and Pollina told him twice to get his hands off Thomas' mouth.

"Don't be misled about the suffocating him" words, LoTurco said. "There is no evidence or charge to imply intent. Was it a terrible thing to say? Absolutely."

Valva, LoTurco said, didn't perceive the danger or risk his son was in at the time.

LoTurco also, again, discussed the video where Valva is heard saying Thomas face-planted because he was cold, then saying "Boo f------ hoo." He said the "headline" was horrible and accused the prosecution of sensationalism.

"Did he fail his duties as a parent? Unquestionably. His failures led to his son's death and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life," LoTurco said.

LoTurco also said the cleaner came in and testified she'd heard Thomas crying "bloody murder," loudly, in the house after Pollina and Valva brought him to the basement. He also maintained that there were video clips missing from 9:41 a.m. to 9:51 a.m., a "critically important" time. Valva called 911 from the basement at 9:41, he said. He also played a clip that had a woman, who he said was Pollina, crying in the kitchen at 9:51 a.m. after Thomas had been rushed to the hospital with Valva in the ambulance.

LoTurco said there was a lack of evidence, that there were "missing witnesses" including representatives of Child Protective Services, and the children's attorneys. He said the boys were fed, were not malnourished, and had shown remorse, sobbing and wailing after seeing his son's body.

Prosecution fires back

After a break for lunch, Kelly, soft-spoken but methodical, laid out her summation, a long line of Thomas' teachers and his elementary school principal in the courtroom. She began with the photos of Thomas, smiling Jan. 16, 2020 and in the morgue the next day. Forced to sleep in a freezing garage in 19 degree temperatures, his body was already cold when his father walked in and found that he had both defecated and urinated on himself, she said.

In the first photo, Thomas was wearing a black sweatshirt, which he'd also slept in. She showed the shirt to the jury, which she said had feces on it.

Most children come into the world and form loving bonds with their parents, going on to live long lives, she said. Most children are taught kindness, compassion and empathy.

"For some children, it doesn't end up that way," Kelly said. "This was certainly not the case in the Valva house."

When the boys came to live with Pollina and Valva, Thomas was 6 and his older brother, 8. They were faced with "wanton abandonment, circumstances that were difficult to imagine — except, this was their dad."

Discussing the "missing video clips" LoTurco mentioned, Kelly reminded the jury that a detective testified he'd watched them being remotely erased. "He could see them disappear," she said.

The jury also heard testimony that, hours after Thomas' death, Pollina told Valva she deleted the Nest cam history.

"Good," Kelly said Valva told her. "Change the password. Do it now."

She added that the words indicated that the pair was hiding something and that they were in a "frenzy," deleting footage.

Kelly referenced hours of emotional testimony by teachers and other educators describing that the boys were starving, freezing, bruised, emaciated, andvcame to school reeking of urine. She recalled the plumber who said he'd seen Pollina push one of the boys down two flights of stairs while Valva did nothing to shop.

Valva, she said, failed "miserably" in protecting his children. She said he was "obsessed" with Pollina and his relationship with her.

"He put his children under her," she said, "to the exclusion and detriment of his children. He didn't want the relationship with her to end."

The defense would have the jury believe that Pollina was "manipulative" and controlling, she said. But in fact, Valva once texted that if she wanted him to leave, could she give him to the weekend, not "I have nowhere to go." And, Kelly said, "They wanted to stay together. His failure to leave had everything to do with keeping Angela Pollina." Even the heated texts and arguing always ended with "I love you," from both — and when the pair was arrested Jan. 24, 2020, they were found together in their "nice, cozy warm bedroom" at the Bittersweet Lane home, Kelly said.

Even after Thomas' death, when Pollina had left, Kelly said Valva texted her: "I need you as much as you need me. Things are 30 times worse since you left. Please come home. I love you."

Nowhere was there a mention of Thomas, of loving Thomas or missing Thomas, of wanting him to come home, of Valva expressing sorrow for what had happened, Kelly said.

At the hospital, hours after his son died. Kelly said, Valva sent a video to a friend, asked a religious leader for help not with his suffering, but for a transfer at work, and spoke to a NYPD union rep about ordering pizza with garlic knot crust.

"Do you think he cared at all about Thomas' loss of life?" she asked. "He sits here today looking for a pass — a charge of criminally negligent homicide" despite his "cruel and wicked punishment of Thomas Valva," she said.

Kelly painted an image of how the boys must have felt, moving into a new home — where their every move was monitored by cameras — with a new "stepmother" and sisters, and finding them in a new school.

"Thank God for the East Moriches Elementary School that embraced the children and showed them kindness," Kelly said. "They realized that they were autistic and tried so hard, so that they could succeed."

When he first arrived at the school in September 2017, Thomas, his teachers agreed, was kind and sweet, smart and eager to learn, very highly functioning.

By 2018, all that had changed. It became increasingly evident that "things were not right." Numerous CPS reports were filed, "a cry for help," Kelly said. Sadly, the CPS reports changed nothing, she said.

And, she added, the CPS reports were a major trigger for Pollina's tension. Because Thomas himself was a "reporter," and told his teachers that his father caused the bruise on his forehead, that sparked anger and Valva's resolve never to send Thomas to school again with an injury that could trigger another CPS investigation, Kelly said.

School officials documented the older Valva boy's weight loss of 11 pounds in one year and Thomas' gain of only a pound, both abnormal, Kelly said, also describing agian their chapped, red hands and cheeks. The boys wore their jackets all the time and the older boy didn't want to go outside to recess because he was too cold.

Valva, she said, would not allow his children to get free lunch and didn't let his older son's teacher allow him to wear a sweatshirt she kept in class for him.

Kelly detailed the boys' bruises and showed a short video of Valva in the throes of beating one of the boys in the garage.

She showed photos and videos of the tents in the garage, of the boys sleeping, curled into tiny balls, on the cold, bare floor — eating their dinner on that same floor by an old Christmas tree while the rest of the family ate upstairs, with even the dog in a warm room.

Responding to a text from Pollina in 2019 about the older boy ripping off his diaper, Kelly said Valva wrote: "I will beat them until they bleed. It's the only thing that works."

In another text, Pollina asked about a phone charger. "It's in the car," Valva wrote. "I forgot to put it back because I was beating the s--- out of my autistic kids."

And after Pollina complained about the boys in another text, Valva wrote: "Okay, I'll beat them up again. Talking doesn't f------ work. Maybe a bloody face will."

When told the boys had an accident, Valva texted Pollina to tell them "'I'm going to kick his ass again. Tell them I'm going to hit them with my belt.' Instead of wrapping his arms around them."

Of the comment "Boo f------ hoo," Kelly said: "That's not sensationalism on my part. That's not a headline." Pointing at Valva, she said, "Those are his words and his treatment of his children."

Looking at a bruise on Thomas' head that Pollina texted him, Valva said, "I didn't do that, I hit their a----," she said. But Pollina said when he flipped him over to beat him, his head must have hit the floor.

School officials tried to offer Valva help with the boys' incontinence, for free, but Valva refused, Kelly said.

The teachers, she said, "put this defendant on notice" with emails, calls and texts, which were met by his bullying and his intimidation.

Kelly brought up text that said Pollina told Valva he only kept the boys so he wouldn't have to pay child suport and said they were "pawns in his game."

Discussing the murder charge, Kelly said Valva showed "depraved indifference," again and again. Despite the defense stating that Valva was concerned about a traumatic brain injury, Kelly said evidence had shown that was not what killed Thomas, it was hypothermia — she described the medical examiner's testimony, which described the stages of hypothermia. And she described Thomas' alopecia, small thymus, and kidney infection, caused by stress and because he was not allowed to use the bathroom in his own home but had to go outside, "beyond the hill," in Thomas' own words.

Thomas died after cardiac arrest caused by hypothermia, Kelly said medical professionals testified. When EMTs arrived he was gray, his lips were blue — he had died already, she said.

Describing the heroic efforts of EMTs to save Thomas, Kelly said, pointing at Valva again, "Every other person wants what's best for their child, unless it's this guy!"

On the morning he died, Valva told Thomas to "get in the backyard" naked after he'd slept in a freezing garage, then washed him with cold water. When Thomas fell on the cement numerous times, his father screamed at him. "Walk! Walk! Walk!" she said.

When Pollina's daughter asked why Thomas kept falling, she told her it was because he'd been washed with cold water when it was freezing and he was hypothermic, Kelly said.

Later, Valva screamed at his son, "Wake up! Are you alive?" He yelled that three times, slapping his unresponsive son, she said.

And, she maintained, if, as the defense suggested, Valva thought Thomas had head trauma, "Why was he slapping him?"

Kelly also said she believed there had never been a shower and said the photos of that bathroom in the basement were not consistent of what it would have looked like in the "chaos" of Valva trying to help his son.

"He's covering up for what he did in the backyard," she said. Kelly said Valva went upstairs and left Thomas in the basement.

She also said she believes the housekeeper was mistaken when she said she heard Thomas cry.

Even in the ambulance, Valva texted operations at the NYPD, not a loved one, while his son was in a grave situation.

Any tears Valva shed were because he realized "it was real" and he was in dire trouble, Kelly said, adding that he set up a GoFundMe himself soon after to pay for Thomas' funeral.

Valva, she said, showed "depraved indifference to human life." The fact that the defense said he didn't want him to die didn't matter, Kelly said, because Valva was not charged with an intentional crime.

That morning Thomas died, Valva said of his son, "The little b------ s--- his pants so much it's coming out his a--."

He screamed at him for ruining the pants he was supposed to wear to school, she said.

And, she said, he ordered his small boy out into 19 degree weather, naked, after leaving him in a frigid garage all night. "Depraved," she said.

Then, he screamed at Thomas as he kept falling, rather than helping him, slapping him and yelling, "Are you alive?" She added: "Depraved."

Valva putting his hand on Thomas' mouth when he was catatonic and unresponsive? "That's depraved," she said.

Valva, Kelly accused, left Thomas in the basement when he went upstairs to get Pollina, before calling 911.

"He left him in that basement to die alone," she said. "He left Thomas dead on a couch in the basement."

As a trained police officer, Valva knew the signs of hypothermia, and that a person being given CPR must be on the floor, not the couch, she said.

And, she asked, if he wasn't lying, why did he say Thomas tripped and fell while running to the bus, not that he'd fallen on the concrete?

"He lied to cover up for himself," she said.

Showing a photo of Thomas from June, 2019, taken at school with a bruise on his face, Kelly said: "Take a look at the expression on his face. It tells you everything you need to know. Look into his eyes. The child was living in a house of horrors."

Picking up Thomas backpack, Kelly showed his pencil case. His crayons. His lunchbox. The books his teachers had lovingly sent home. She picked up Thomas' third-grade homework, with his handwriting — probably the last thing Thomas ever wrote, she said.

But, unlike many parents who, devastated by grief, would have held their child's belongings close, a precious memory, Valva left it, abandoned, on the floor of the garage, where it was found the day he and Pollina were arrested.

"It meant nothing to him," Kelly said. "Just like Thomas."

The jury is expected to begin deliberations Friday.