Murder trial for Angela Pollina begins over death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- The murder trial for Angela Pollina, accused of letting her fiance's son sleep in a garage in below-freezing temperatures before the boy died, started Monday on Long Island.
Trial one: guilty. Michael Valva, a former NYPD officer, was handcuffed and sent upstate to serve 25 years to life for killing his 8-year-old son, Thomas Valva.
Pollina, Valva's former fiancee, was also charged.
After hundreds of prospective jurors were dismissed for saying they couldn't be fair and impartial, opening statements began in this emotionally charged and tragic murder case.
Pollina's mother and sister were in attendance.
Thomas, a boy on the autism scale, was forced to sleep on the garage floor of his Center Moriches home because of bed-wetting issues. He died of hypothermia on a 19-degree day in January 2020.
Valva forced his son, who was naked, to an outside spigot and sprayed him with freezing water.
The jury was told Pollina was complicit, did nothing to help, and then lied.
"I told the jury, she's going to take the stand to own up to everything she did wrong and also explain what she didn't do. That she didn't commit the crime. That the father committed it. Mr. Valva committed it," said Matthew Tuohy, Pollina's defense attorney.
Prosecutors called Pollina's years of maltreatment of Thomas "evil, wicked, inhumate, depraved."
The boy's teachers will testify he was eager to learn, but always cold and hungry, and that he wasn't fed breakfast because he didn't call Pollina "Mommy."
Prosecutors said home surveillance audio and video that Pollina tried to delete will play a starring role. They said it proves she did not want Valva's three sons living with her and her three daughters in their house on Bittersweet Lane.
The jury will see Pollina's text messages.
"You want a life with me? Then give them back," one text to Valva read.
Pollina wanted the boys to go back to their biological mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, who lost custody during a bitter divorce.
Zubko-Valva is suing Suffolk County for failures on the part of Child Protective Services, the court system, and law enforcement to protect the boys.