Angela Pollina believes she is innocent despite murder conviction in Thomas Valva's death, her attorney says
Angela Pollina is not ready to accept a lengthy prison term for the 2020 murder of 8-year-old Thomas Valva, her defense attorney said before the Center Moriches woman is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in a Suffolk courtroom.
"She’s distraught, upset, bewildered," said Pollina's Huntington-based defense attorney, Matthew Tuohy, in an interview with Newsday before his client's sentencing. "She believes she’s innocent. She maintains she’s innocent. She's upset. She’s upset she remains in jail. She’s upset that she hasn’t been able to speak to her daughters. She's upset at the verdict."
A Suffolk County jury convicted Pollina, who declined a Newsday interview request through her attorney, last month of second-degree murder in Thomas' Jan. 17, 2020, hypothermia death and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child for the abuse of Thomas and his older brother, Anthony, then 10. Both boys were on the autism spectrum.
Thomas froze to death after Pollina and her then-fiance, Michael Valva, forced the boy to spend the night in the unheated garage of their Center Moriches home in freezing temperatures. Thomas died of hypothermia.
WHAT TO KNOW
- Angela Pollina, the Center Moriches woman convicted last month of second-degree murder in the death of her ex-fiance's 8-year-old son, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.
- Thomas Valva died of hypothermia on Jan. 17, 2020, after he and his brother were forced by Pollina and Michael Valva, the boys' father, to sleep in an unheated garage during frigid weather.
- Pollina is facing the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the top charge of second-degree murder when she is sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead.
Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, who presided over Pollina's trial, is scheduled to sentence the 45-year-old former medical biller Tuesday morning.
Suffolk County prosecutors have not commented on the sentence they intend to request.
Michael Valva, an ex-NYPD officer and the father of Thomas and Anthony, was sentenced last year after his conviction on the same charges to the maximum sentence — 25 years to life, which prosecutors had requested. Prosecutors are expected to seek the same sentence for Pollina.
"I can’t speak for them," Tuohy said of the prosecutors. "But honestly, I would be shocked if they asked for anything less."
Thomas’ mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, who is suing Suffolk County, Child Protective Services and several individual CPS caseworkers for $200 million for its failure to protect Thomas and Anthony, has not spoken out on social media to weigh in on Pollina’s sentencing.
Asked for their position on what they believe to be an appropriate sentence for Pollina, Justyna Zubko-Valva’s Manhattan-based attorney, Jon Norinsberg, said: “She is just as guilty as Valva in our view. She should spend the rest of her life in jail.”
Tuohy said he'll request the judge sentence his client to the minimum — 15 years to life — based on his defense strategy during her two-week-long trial.
"The facts of the case, she didn’t really commit the act," said Tuohy. "It was basically Valva who set everything into motion, basically my whole defense."
Thomas Valva appears in an undated photo. Credit: Courtesy Justyna Zubko-Valva
Prosecutors contend, however, it was Pollina who was the impetus. Almost immediately after Valva gained custody of his three sons — Anthony, Thomas and Andrew — and moved in with Pollina and her three daughters, the abuse of Anthony and Thomas began, trial testimony showed.
Pollina had little patience for the boys, who began having incontinence issues after moving in, and wouldn't let them sit on the furniture. She first sent them outside to sleep in a tent on the back patio, then inside the garage, where the boys were initially given a crib mattress on which to sleep. But as text messages at trial revealed, Pollina thought the boys were too comfortable. And she repeatedly demanded that Valva punish his sons severely and take away any comforts. Eventually the boys slept on the floor of the garage without any blankets or pillows.
Pollina frequently sent video clips of the boys in the garage to Valva through text while he worked overnight shifts as an NYPD transit cop, complaining of the boys’ behavior and urging Valva to take action, trial evidence showed.
When Valva argued that the boys should be allowed back in the house, Pollina told Valva pointedly to move out with his sons if he didn't approve of the setup, text messages displayed at her trial showed. Valva, his attorneys argued, put up with the situation because of financial issues.
Thomas' and Anthony's schoolteachers testified that the boys appeared starving during their time at East Moriches Elementary School. They frequently arrived at school complaining of hunger and didn't have enough in their lunchboxes to sustain them. So desperate for food, the boys ate crumbs off the floor and stole food from other children. Thomas, crying, once told a teacher that he wasn't given breakfast because he didn't "use my words" or call Pollina "mommy."
The boys also came to school with bruises, cuts and other injuries, the teachers said. They complained of being cold, and Anthony tried to avoid going outside for recess — even in warmer months.
The teachers and school officials called Child Protective Services many times, including a group effort to “flood” a CPS reporting line, but the boys remained living with Valva and Pollina, testimony at the trial showed.
Prosecutors also displayed video and audio evidence from an extensive home surveillance system that Pollina managed, which allowed jurors to hear most of what led up to Thomas' death.
It was 19 degrees on the night before Thomas died. Valva brought his freezing son outside and hosed off the naked child from a spigot that morning after the boy had a bathroom accident — acts that Tuohy said killed Thomas.
As Thomas struggled against the effects of late-stage hypothermia, falling down and losing consciousness, Pollina did nothing to assist Thomas, screaming at Valva to quiet down so the neighbors wouldn’t hear, prosecutors said.
When one of her daughters asked why Thomas couldn't walk, according to audio captured on the surveillance system from that morning, Pollina replied: "Because he's hypothermic."
Thomas’ body temperature was 76.1 degrees when he was pronounced dead at Long Island Community Hospital in Patchogue.
Tuohy argued his client tried to save Thomas' life by getting blankets and a heater that morning, but prosecutors said it was too little too late.
Despite Pollina's contention that Thomas was still alive during most of her interaction with him that morning, prosecutors argued he was likely unconscious or already dead when she first encountered him. First responders who testified about attempting lifesaving efforts that morning said Thomas had no pulse and appeared blue and lifeless.
The Franklin Square native, who had three daughters from two previous relationships before she got involved with Valva, attempted to shift blame to her ex-fiance for Thomas' death.
Pollina testified at her trial — a rare move for a murder defendant — admitting that she had banished the boys to the garage. And she proclaimed herself "evil," using language from the depraved indifference murder charge she faced, bolstering the prosecution's argument.
"Yes, I was wrong; Yes, I was evil," Pollina said as she testified in her own defense inside a packed Riverhead courtroom. "I'm not justifying it. I'm not saying it was right. It was evil. … I put them in the garage. Yes, I did."
She cried some, but under cross-examination grew testy.
In interviews after the verdict was rendered, jurors said the text messages between Valva and Pollina and the video and audio evidence displayed at the trial, was overwhelming evidence of Pollina's guilt.
Pollina has been unable to speak to her three daughters, who are juveniles, since she has been incarcerated per Family Court orders, which Tuohy criticized.
"It’s crazy to me," said Tuohy. "Family Court — it’s another example of our broken system. They’re her daughters. Why shouldn’t she? Plenty of people get convicted of acts and they’re allowed to speak to their family members."
Asked whether she will address the court, as many defendants do before a judge hands down their sentence, Tuohy said Pollina's "still undecided about that right now."
But it's unlikely any of her family will be in the courtroom.
"Her mom and dad are elderly, not in good health, and really struggling," said Tuohy. "Many people heckled her mom and her sister when they came to the trial. So I don’t know. It’s not that they don’t want to support her, but it’s difficult for them."
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
