Angela Pollina's trial in Thomas Valva's hypothermia death set for February, judge says

Angela Pollina, the Center Moriches woman charged with murder in the hypothermia death of her ex-fiance's 8-year-old son, Thomas Valva, will go on trial early next year, a judge said Tuesday. 

Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei set the start of jury selection for Feb. 21 in the trial of Pollina, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and child endangerment in the death of Thomas and the alleged abuse of both Thomas and his eldest brother, Anthony, then 10. 

Pollina, 45, was engaged to Thomas' father, ex-NYPD officer Michael Valva, who was convicted earlier this month in Thomas' Jan. 17, 2020, death. Pollina, who has been jailed without bail in Riverhead since her arrest on Jan. 24, 2020, did not appear in court Tuesday. 

Pollina's defense attorney Matthew Tuohy said Tuesday that his client intends to testify at her trial and said his defense will emphasize that Pollina was not involved in Thomas being either hosed off or bathed — which the prosecution and defense respectively blamed for Thomas' death — after the boy slept in an unheated garage when the temperature was just 19 degrees. Both Thomas and Anthony were diagnosed with mild autism.

"I have a pretty straightforward and simple theory: Number one, he did it," said Tuohy, speaking outside the Riverhead courthouse Tuesday. "He's guilty. He was found guilty of it. … She’s innocent. It was his acts that caused the child’s death, not hers." 

Earlier this month, a jury convicted Valva, 43, of second-degree murder and child endangerment charges in the case after about six weeks of trial testimony. Valva is scheduled to be sentenced in December and faces 25 years to life in prison.

Suffolk prosecutors alleged at trial that Valva and Pollina “acted in concert” and showed “depraved indifference” when they forced Thomas to sleep in the unheated garage and failed to render timely aid as the boy was dying. 

On that morning, Thomas had a toilet accident and his father hosed the naked boy off with cold water from a spigot outside, prosecutors said. After he fell unconscious, Valva waited about an hour to call 911 and start CPR, prosecutors said. Valva then lied to police, first responders and medical professionals and said Thomas had fallen and hit his head on the driveway while running for the school bus, prosecutors said. His body temperature was 76.1 degrees when he died at the hospital. 

A video surveillance system, controlled by Pollina, in nearly every room of the home took center stage at Valva's trial. Although Pollina deleted video from the morning of Thomas’ death, according to trial testimony, prosecutors played audio from a video inside the home’s combination pantry and laundry room, which allowed the jury to hear much of Valva and Pollina’s comments.

At one point, according to the audio, Pollina said Thomas appeared hypothermic in response to a child asking why Thomas couldn’t walk: "Because he's hypothermic. Hypothermic means you're freezing. Washing yourself in cold water when it's freezing outside, you get hypothermic." 

Valva's defense attorneys argued that Valva didn't hose his son off outside but instead used water he put inside a Sprite bottle to cleanse the boy and then put him in a warm bath, which caused him to go into cardiac arrest. While they admitted he lied to authorities about what happened to Thomas that morning, they said he loved his son and didn't want him to die and therefore was not guilty of depraved indifference murder. 

Tuohy said prosecutors "spent so much time vilifying" Pollina during Valva's trial, but he would direct Pollina's jury to concentrate on the events on the morning of Thomas' death. 

"Angela Pollina had no part in that," Tuohy said. "Angela Pollina was taking care of her kids in the morning, doing her thing. … He did it. He's guilty. And she didn’t do it. She didn't commit the act." 

Asked about text messages between Pollina and Valva presented at Valva's trial that showed it was Pollina who instigated and perpetuated the boys sleeping in the garage, Tuohy said “those were mistakes of hers, wanting the children in the garage, putting them in the garage.”

Tuohy added: "I don't think those comments neither condemn or insulate her. It was his act, with the spigot, hosing the boy off after they got out of the garage … It was clear that when he, Michael Valva, on his own volition, hosed the boy off, and when Michael Valva put the boy into a bath, that killed him." 

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.