Thomas Valva case: Opening statements in Angela Pollina's murder trial expected Monday

The second trial in the death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva starts Monday with opening statements. This time, Angela Pollina, the then-fiancee of Thomas’ father, stands trial for allegedly killing the third-grader after forcing him to sleep in an unheated garage in frigid temperatures.

A jury was seated Friday in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead after 2½ days of jury selection during which more than 600 potential jurors were screened. More than half of those screened said they couldn’t serve because they had already formed an opinion on the case, which has garnered widespread attention.

Thomas and his older brother Anthony, who was then 10, were forced to sleep in the garage of their Center Moriches home by their father, ex-NYPD Officer Michael Valva, and by Pollina as a punishment for bathroom accidents, prosecutors have said.

Thomas died of hypothermia on Jan. 17, 2020, after sleeping in the garage and after Valva brought his son outside naked and sprayed him with water from a spigot after he soiled himself, prosecutors have said.

Valva, 43, was convicted by a Suffolk jury last year of second-degree murder in Thomas’ death and is incarcerated in an upstate prison near the Canadian border.

The case has outraged many in the community because of the failures on the part of Child Protective Services, the court system and law enforcement to protect the boys despite numerous warning signs, Newsday has previously reported.

Pollina, a 45-year-old mother of three daughters, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly abusing Thomas and Anthony.

According to teachers at East Moriches Elementary School, Thomas and Anthony were sweet and eager learners but often came to school complaining of hunger and saying they were cold. Thomas once told a teacher that he wasn’t fed breakfast because he didn’t call Pollina “mommy.”

Pollina’s attorney, Matthew Tuohy, has said his defense will center on Pollina’s lack of direct involvement with Thomas in the time just before he died.

“They’re trying to judge her on previous dates and missteps and mistakes that have nothing to do at all with the day at hand,” Tuohy said. “He’s the one that put them in the garage that night and the reality is he took them out of the garage. And putting them in the garage did not kill the boy. It was Michael Valva, putting the boy, hosing him off with a spigot and putting him in a bath — that killed him.”

While Tuohy seeks to put some separation between the actions of Valva and Pollina on the morning of Thomas’ death, he has to contend with Pollina’s own words.

Pollina’s home surveillance system, which consisted of video cameras in several rooms of their home, played a starring role at Valva’s trial, providing the prosecution with video evidence of the boys’ treatment — and what Pollina and Valva said.

Prosecutors also have reams of text messages between Pollina and Valva.

In a February 2018 text message exchange, Pollina accused her ex-fiance of only wanting custody of the boys to avoid paying child support.

“You want a life with me, then give them back,” Pollina wrote in a text displayed during Valva’s trial.

Pollina complained to Valva about the boys’ incontinence problems and said she didn’t want them in the house because of it, according to text message evidence from Valva’s trial.

The issues began, according to prosecutors, when the boys, who were both on the autism spectrum, came to live with their father and Pollina, and she denied them bathroom access while Valva worked long hours as an NYPD transit officer.

Tuohy has said that Valva parented his children, while Pollina was in charge of her three daughters — a family dynamic that he stressed to potential jurors during jury selection.

In audio captured on the surveillance system the morning that Thomas died, a child asked why Thomas couldn’t walk. Pollina answered, according to the audio presented during Valva’s trial: "Because he's hypothermic. Hypothermic means you're freezing. Washing yourself in cold water when it's freezing outside, you get hypothermic." 

Tuohy said he’s likely to call Tyrene Rodriguez, the former Pollina-Valva housekeeper, to testify at Pollina’s trial, though he was mum on other potential defense witnesses.

But Pollina herself is definitely taking the stand, he said, saying it's important for the jury to hear from her directly.

“She’s nervous, very, very, very nervous," Tuohy said. "And she’s scared. But she’s going to fight hard to show that she had no part in the act."

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.