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The Long Island jury convicted Michael Valva of second-degree murder for killing his 8-year-old son, Thomas, who contracted hypothermia when he was made to stay in a freezing garage.
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A Long Island jury on Friday convicted a former New York City police officer in the death of his 8-year-old son, an autistic boy who died from hypothermia nearly three years ago after his father forced him to sleep in a freezing garage.
The former officer, Michael Valva, 43, of Center Moriches, Long Island, was found guilty of second-degree murder and four counts of child endangerment after a six-week trial at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, Long Island. The jury returned its unanimous verdict after about seven hours of deliberations, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office confirmed on Friday.
The case cast a harsh light on Suffolk County’s child protection agency. The principal and teachers at East Moriches Elementary School, where Thomas Valva had been in third grade, had made at least two dozen calls to child protective services in the three years leading up to his death.
Suffolk County prosecutors said that Mr. Valva had physically and verbally abused two of his sons for years before Jan. 17, 2020, when Thomas, who went into cardiac arrest, died from hypothermia, according to an autopsy report from the Suffolk County medical examiner.
Raymond A. Tierney, the district attorney, said he was satisfied with the jury’s decision, but it could do only partial justice.
“This guilty verdict will not bring back 8-year-old Thomas, who suffered immense cruelty at the hands of his father,” he said. Mr. Valva, he said, “will now pay for cutting short the life of a young, innocent, defenseless boy who had a lifetime ahead of him.”
According to testimony and text messages between Mr. Valva and his former fiancée, Angela Pollina, the couple had for months repeatedly locked Thomas and his then 10-year-old brother, Anthony, who is also autistic, in an unheated garage at their home at 11 Bittersweet Lane. Ms. Pollina, 45, has also been charged with second-degree murder and child endangerment, and will be tried later. Both Mr. Valva and Ms. Pollina pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Mr. Valva showed little emotion during closing arguments on Thursday. He looked away when a photo of his son in the morgue was shown on a small screen at the defense table.
About 70 people had packed the small courtroom, taking up nearly every seat. About a dozen residents from the community who had been there for almost every day of the trial had also come to watch.
John LoTurco, Mr. Valva’s lawyer, conceded to the jury that his client was guilty of all four counts of child endangerment. But he asked jurors to consider lesser homicide and manslaughter charges that carry significantly less prison time.
He argued that for prosecutors to prove Mr. Valva had committed second-degree murder, they would have to show that he exhibited “depraved indifference” toward his son. Prosecutors, he said, wanted to paint Mr. Valva as a “coldblooded monster, a werewolf with no love in his heart, who did not shed a tear over the death of his son.”
“You’d have to believe that he had utter disregard for Thomas’s life, that he simply did not care whether Thomas would die. And that’s absolutely not true,” Mr. LoTurco added.
But Mr. Valva’s treatment of his children had been a longtime concern. Teachers filed reports that the brothers arrived to school with bruises and abrasions on their bodies. Instructors saw Thomas and Anthony eat crumbs on the floor and food out of the trash. The children were constantly cold, according to the testimony, and they wore Pull-Ups because they were incontinent due to stress and to long bouts of not using a bathroom while at home.
On Jan. 17, 2020, Thomas, who was in the garage, had urinated and defecated on himself just after 8 a.m., according to an audio recording from a security camera in the home. Mr. Valva told Ms. Pollina that he should make the boy eat the feces. He berated his son, using expletives as he screamed at Thomas for soiling his pants before school.
He then ordered Thomas to strip down, according to the recording. The boy went to the backyard so that Mr. Valva could douse him with cold water. Thomas fell as he walked, striking his head on the concrete, video footage from a neighbor’s security camera shows.
“You can’t throw an 8-year-old out into 19-degree weather naked after having him sleep on a cold garage floor and not expect that the child is going to be hypothermic,” said Kerriann Kelly, a Suffolk County prosecutor.
About 8:50 a.m., Mr. Valva, who had brought his son back into the garage, can be heard on an audio recording from a security camera swearing as he tells Ms. Pollina that Thomas is catatonic. He repeatedly yells “Wake up! Are you alive?” and slaps Thomas each time.
After trying a warm bath Mr. Valva called 911 at about 9:40 a.m. before performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Doctors at Long Island Community Hospital took Thomas’s temperature. It was only 76.1 degrees. He died at about 10:30 a.m.
“This is depraved-indifference murder by a man who had an utter, complete disregard for the life of his child. And he did nothing that day but lie, and treat his child in a cruel, inhumane way,” Ms. Kelly said in her closing arguments on Thursday.
She showed the jury the last known photo of Thomas, taken by his teacher on Jan. 16, 2020. Thomas, who wore a dark gray long-sleeve shirt, was smiling as he gave her a thumb’s up.
Ms. Kelly then showed a photo from the next day. It was the one taken at the morgue. Thomas was pale and his lips were blue, with his dark eyelashes standing out against his snow-white skin.
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