N.Y.P.D. officer charged with murder of Autistic son

Post Reply New Topic

The jury in the murder trial of a Center Moriches woman accused in the hypothermia death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva began deliberations Thursday afternoon after a prosecutor told jurors defendant Angela Pollina punished the victim and his brother "for the sin of their autism."

Kerriann Kelly also told the jurors sitting in a courtroom in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead that it was Pollina who sent Thomas and his brother, Anthony, to spend the night in a cold garage and then failed to help Thomas as he froze to death.

"She said they were dirty, stinky, filthy little boys so she locked them up like caged animals," said Kelly in her 90-minute closing argument, pointing out the two boys also struggled to cope with Pollina's constant screaming and berating.

But defense attorney Matthew Tuohy argued in his closings that Pollina, 45, was unfairly villainized.

Tuohy conceded to jurors that mother of three girls was “mean” to Thomas. But he blamed the boy’s father, Michael Valva, who is Pollina's ex-fiance, for Thomas' death, saying he forced him to sleep in a freezing garage. He implored the jury to find Pollina not guilty of Thomas’ murder.

Pollina's mindset on the day of Thomas’ death did not meet the standard for a second-degree murder conviction, Tuohy said.

“We want to somehow make it right,” Tuohy said of the child’s killing. “But finding her guilty of a murder she didn’t commit isn’t gonna make it right.”

But Pollina's "relentless" texts messages to Valva, complaining about the boys, "are the reason the boys were in the garage," Kelly countered.

The text messages, in which Pollina compared Anthony to a dog she had to put down and repeatedly told Valva she didn't want the boys in her home, are "overwhelming evidence of her state of mind," Kelly said.

On Thursday, Kelly dismissed much of her testimony, saying it was full of "mistruths, misinformation to cover up for herself."

"She acknowledged that it was evil and it certainly was," said Kelly.

"What she said doesn't match up to the video or audio …," said Kelly. "Everything said was contrary to evidence."

In all of the audio that the jury heard from that morning, Kelly pointed out, "she never once asked if Thomas is OK," arguing that showed a depraved indifference to Thomas' life.

"If he wasn't in any danger … why was she crying when she went into room to get the heater?" asked Kelly.

The prosecutor also attacked the notion that Pollina, who complained about what she perceived as the boys' lack of cleanliness, would have held Thomas after he soiled himself and urinated on the garage floor.

"Do you really believe she went into the garage and held that child on her lap?" Kelly asked incredulously. "That's absurd."

"This course of conduct shows that she stayed in the play," Kelly said, again borrowing Tuohy's phrase. "And Jan. 17, 2020, was no different."

Kelly attacked Tuohy's theory of the case — that what happened on the day Thomas died is the only conduct that it should consider — and said the defendant wants the jury to believe that Pollina "flipped a switch" … "and on Jan. 17 she's not responsible."

This defendant beat down an adult man, a police officer … it's no wonder 8-year-old Thomas succumbed to her, too," said Kelly.

The relationship between Pollina and Valva was "twisted" and "all a cover-up for their sadistic approach to Thomas and Anthony," she said.

"Even Michael Valva acquiesced to her mindset," said Kelly. "They did it together. They have equal responsibility for what happened to these boys."

In a criticism of Tuohy's propensity to refer to Thomas as "the boy" and to his death as "the tragedy," Kelly said: "The boy has a name. His name is Thomas Valva and the tragedy was his murder at the age of 8 at the hands of this defendant, Angela Pollina, and their father, Michael Valva," said Kelly, pointing to Pollina.

Tuohy insisted his client is not guilty of murder.

“You have to stay away from the mob mentality; she’s a [expletive], she’s evil,” said Tuohy, of Huntington, banging his fist on the lectern as he spoke to jurors. “She’s innocent of depraved indifference murder in the second degree.”

During his 80-minute summation, Tuohy, who told the jury he’s a father of two sons and got emotional as he reflected on the death of Thomas, summarized each of the prosecution’s 21 witnesses, emphasizing why he thought they weren’t important to determining Pollina’s guilt or innocence.

“I said I wasn’t gonna come and put on a show … wasn’t gonna beat up on witnesses,” Tuohy said, referencing the fact that he didn’t question many of the prosecution’s witnesses, and when he did, asked few questions.

Pointing to the piano teacher who testified that she frequently heard Pollina screaming at the boys during weekly lessons at the house, Tuohy said: “That is just sprinkles on top of the ice cream so you hate her more.”

Tuohy added: “There’s no crime being a [expletive]!”

Tuohy said he and his client both admitted she made many mistakes — but those occurred months before Thomas died. “I never, ever, ever tried to paint her as an angel — not once,” said Tuohy.

The defense attorney frequently told the jury to “stay in the play,” his parlance for concentrating on what happened on the morning Thomas died. Tuohy argued that Pollina had no involvement in Valva’s actions that morning — and she intervened when she saw Thomas struggling by getting blankets and a heater, actions that he said do not show a depraved indifference to Thomas’ life.

“Michael Valva did all the acts,” Tuohy said, including putting the boys in the garage the night before Thomas died and hosing Thomas off outside naked and then putting him in a warm bath. “He did the acts.”

“They’re putting all the currency on what happened in the past to pick at your emotions,” Tuohy told jurors, adding that prosecutors tried to “vilify” Pollina and “make you hate her.”

Tuohy called Pollina “the star witness” of the trial and said she’s “fighting for her life.”

he jury sent two notes after getting the case at 3:57 p.m., asking for a copy of the charges, and in a second note, for former Suffolk Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Caplan's testimony related to hypothermia, Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei said.

Deliberations are expected to resume Friday morning in Riverhead.

Angela Pollina was convicted Friday of killing 8-year-old Thomas Valva by exiling him to the unheated garage of their Center Moriches home on a 19-degree night and failing to help the autistic child as he froze to death in what prosecutors described as a final cruel act after she tortured and starved Thomas and his brother.

Pollina cried as the verdict was rendered and held her head between her arms when the court discussed a sentencing date.

Pollina attorney Matthew Tuohy said he was “very upset” with the verdict as he made his way to his car surrounded by court officers.

She’s devastated,” Tuohy said of his client, adding that she’ll appeal. “She’s gonna continue to fight.”

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said he was satisfied with the verdict.

“We will go forward with the sentencing for the defendant in this case and we will continue to look back and try to learn lessons from what happened in this case and to takes steps to make sure that something like this never, ever again happens in Suffolk County," he said.

Tierney said he’s “going to use the power of my office” to examine the systems that failed Thomas and Anthony that could include subpoenas and a grand jury investigation.

“We’re going to utilize that power of investigations,” said Tierney, who declined to confirm whether that process has begun. “We’re going to follow that evidence and see where that evidence takes us.”

Tierney said the prosecutions’ case was bolstered by the video and text message evidence.

“We had the video and we had the text messages and when you marry those together it really created a compelling story of what happened to those two poor boys,” said Tierney.

Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei took the bench at 3:30 p.m. and said the jury had sent a note at 3:05 p.m. that read: “The jury has reached a unanimous decision.”

He said Pollina would be sentenced on April 11.

The verdict came in on the first full day of deliberations in the two-week-old trial.

The jury of eight men and four women returned a guilty verdict on all charges — second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child for the abuse of Thomas and his older brother, Anthony, who was 10 at the time Thomas died.

Pollina, 45, a Franklin Square native and longtime medical biller who has three daughters, faces up to 25 years to life in prison at sentencing.

Angela Pollina, the Long Island stepmom from hell who admitted that she forced her 8-year-old autistic stepson to sleep in a frigid garage the night before he died, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Tuesday, a report said.

“My only regret is, Miss Pollina, they don’t have a garage,” Suffolk County Supreme Court Judge Timothy Mazzei told Pollina about the prison where she will serve time. “That’s where you deserve to be for the rest of your natural life.”

Mazzei excoriated Pollina for her appalling treatment of little Thomas Valva and his older brother, Anthony, who survived.

“You tortured those boys — you tortured them,” he said, according to Newsday.

Pollina declined to speak at her sentencing.

Her attorney, Matthew Tuohy, asked the judge to grant her clemency. Tuohy pointed to the fact that she had no criminal record and had “lived a good life” before she met Thomas’ father, Michael Valva.

His appeals did not sway prosecutors, who called for the maximum sentence.

Lead prosecutor Kerryan Kelly said that Thomas was not surrounded by love the day he died, but instead was enveloped by “pure evil,” according to Newsday.

“The defendant received the sentence she justly deserved,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said afterward, according to the paper.

Pollina did herself no favors when she took the stand. Some said her testimony was so vile, it brought jurors to tears.

“I treated them bad,” Pollina admitted to the court. “I treated them evil. I put them in the garage. It was horrible. Yes, I did … I exiled them.”

And jurors gasped when Pollina said she was comfortable on the winter morning that Thomas froze to death — the day was just “a little chilly,” she said.

She also admitted that she deleted incriminating footage from the family’s web of Nest cameras in her attempt to protect Valva, her then-beau.