Dozens of prospective jurors dismissed on the first day of the Valva-Pollina trial

Dozens of prospective jurors were dismissed Wednesday from serving on the jury of the ex-NYPD officer from Center Moriches charged in the hypothermia death of his 8-year-old son Thomas Valva, after saying they had already made up their minds about the widely publicized case.

Groans were heard from some in the prospective jury pool when Suffolk Supreme Court Justice William Condon mentioned Michael Valva and his former fiancee, Angela Pollina, who have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and child endangerment charges in the death of Thomas, on the first day of jury selection in a Riverhead courtroom as the trial got underway Wednesday afternoon.

"Oh boy," one prospective juror said, shaking his head and quietly recounting details of the case, including that Thomas "froze to death."

Another exclaimed, "wow."

Prosecutors have alleged that Thomas, who was on the autism spectrum, died on Jan. 17, 2020, from hypothermia after Valva and Pollina forced him to sleep in an unheated garage in frigid temperatures.

Valva's attorneys have called Thomas' death a tragic accident and blamed Pollina, while Pollina's lawyer has said Valva was responsible for his son's death.

Valva and Pollina are being tried together, with two separate juries deciding their fates because of their antagonistic defenses. Jury selection for Pollina is scheduled to begin after Valva's jury has been seated.

Condon said the trial will be roughly two months long and is tentatively scheduled to have opening statements on Oct. 3.

"It will not be easy to be a juror on this case, but it is vitally important," Condon told the would-be jurors.

From a pool of about 160 prospective jurors, 26 were directed to return Monday to continue the jury selection process after the majority were dismissed for reasons including their claims that they couldn't fairly consider the evidence or because of conflicts with the lengthy trial schedule.

John LoTurco, the lead attorney for Valva, said after the jury prescreening process had concluded for the day, that he's still hopeful that through the selection process, an unbiased jury can be seated.

"Obviously what's important is that we end up with a fair and impartial jury who have no preconceived opinions about the outcome of the case and that's extremely challenging considering all the pretrial publicity, the negative pretrial publicity in this case," LoTurco said. "If they can just judge the case based on the evidence, the lack of evidence, and what is heard in the courtroom, we then feel confident that we can have a verdict in our favor."

Before the prescreening of prospective jurors began, Condon said he had been alerted to a potential conflict in the case related to Pollina's attorney Matthew Tuohy, who represented Valva at his initial arraignment in district court in Central Islip after his arrest.

"This presents potentially as somewhat of a conflict," said the judge, who added that he was "not very happy about this" and it "boggles my mind" that he was just learning about it Wednesday.

The judge said it involved "potential discussions between Mr. Tuohy and Mr. Valva which we need to explore."

Tuohy, in an interview Wednesday, said Valva alleged to his attorneys that he discussed the case with him when he represented him at his initial arraignment, an assertion Tuohy denied.

"What he's basically saying is when Matt Tuohy represented me at arraignment, we discussed important facts of the case, and that's not true," said Tuohy, who said he stepped in because Valva's then-attorney was running late.

"For the lack of a better word, it's frustrating for me," Tuohy said. "But there's no teeth to it at all. I had zero discussions with him about the case. I talked to him literally for 30 seconds. We didn't discuss the case at all."

Tuohy questioned why Valva was only raising the issue now — more than 2½ years after his arrest — and wondered if Valva was mixing him up with one of his previous attorneys.

Valva's attorneys are expected to renew their request for the defendants to be tried separately Thursday morning, based on their client’s new claim.

LoTurco said Valva's defense team would reserve their comments about the potential conflict issue until Thursday's hearing before the judge, other than to say: "The judge obviously wasn't aware of that. We weren't aware of that as well. Other parties were aware of it. And it was brought to the judge's attention today by us."

Fred Klein, a professor at Hofstra University’s law school and a former Nassau prosecutor, said the defense is right to raise the issue as a potential conflict because of the possibility that Valva told Tuohy something that could be used in Pollina’s defense — and to Valva’s detriment.

Klein said it’s possible the judge will decide to completely sever the cases and both defendants will have their own trials — a win for the defense.

“He is looking to protect the rights of both defendants,” Klein said of the judge.