Justice for Thomas Valva will never be 'served'

Many Long Islanders said “justice was served” after the sentencing of Michael Valva in the Thomas Valva case. Should a jury follow suit in Angela Pollina’s trial, scheduled to begin next week, we likely will hear the same comment. As the mother of a child just like Thomas who was murdered due to the court system’s failings, I assure you: “Justice” is something Thomas deserves, but will never have.

Thomas, 8, was murdered by his father, Michael, and allegedly, his father’s ex-fiancee, Angela. Tommy was starved, beaten, and forced to sleep in an unheated garage in subfreezing temperatures, which led to his death from hypothermia.

While we’ve heard much about how Child Protective Services failed Tommy, we’ve heard nothing as to why New York’s Family Court ordered Tommy and his two brothers to live with their father in this literal house of horrors.

Where was Tommy’s mother? She was court-ordered to stay away. She reportedly was not abusive, not addicted to drugs or alcohol, and not mentally ill. She tried to keep her children safe from their abusive father — she was the “protective parent” — and lost custody.

This was not an aberration. It happens every day, in every courthouse in New York.

Family Court judges routinely dismiss and discount abuse evidence and allegations in custody cases. Parents who try to keep their children safe are viewed as liars and manipulators. Instead of enhancing a child’s safety by restricting an abuser’s access, courts grant abusers custody, unsupervised access, or order ‘reunification therapy,’ forcing an abused child to spend time with their abuser. Imagine the public backlash if a judge ordered a rape victim to spend quality time with their rapist?

Since 2016, 23 children — many, like Tommy, from Long Island — have been murdered by a parent due to systemic New York Family Court failures. I have been tracking these cases since my daughter, Kyra, was murdered at age 2 in 2016 by her abusive father thanks to the failures of Nassau County Family Court.

How can we stop this from happening again?

The judicial system charged with protecting Thomas is as much to blame as Michael Valva and, allegedly, Angela Pollina. The Office of Court Administration (OCA) controls the judicial branch but has failed to inject accountability into the system.

In 2020, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore stated that OCA would form a fatality review team to explore child murders. That never happened, and DiFiore resigned in July. Drawn-out bureaucratic processes are not the answer.

OCA must work with parents of murdered children and child abuse advocates to evaluate the decision-making process in child custody cases when children are murdered, and make changes to protect our children.

OCA has no system to hold accountable judges who preside over cases where children are harmed or murdered. Review of these cases must be mandatory, and measures are needed so anyone found to have ignored, or minimized, allegations of abuse in a custody case with a child homicide could be sanctioned, and potentially removed.

Some change is happening. Seven bills inspired by Kyra’s custody case and murder are in the State Legislature. Gov. Kathy Hochul recently signed one bill on child custody evaluators, and we hope to pass “Kyra’s Law,” a bill I drafted to prioritize the safety of children in custody cases, stop practices that put children in harm’s way, and mandate training for judges on child abuse and family violence.

That is what “justice” for our children should begin to look like.