what to know
- Thomas Valva and his brother were forced to sleep in a freezing Long Island garage and subjected to other torturous abuse, prosecutors said; his father, Michael Valva, and stepmother, Angela Pollina, were convicted of murder and other crimes. Michael Valva was sentenced in 2022
- In the days after his death, investigators unraveled a series of disturbing allegations — repeated, extreme punishment, starvation, being locked in a freezing garage for hours — at the hands of his father and his then-fiancée. Jurors were shown autopsy photos as well as videos of the children shaking.
- Prosecutors sought the maximum for Pollina on Tuesday, telling the judge that she never showed any remorse and never offered a blanket to the boy, who died of hypothermia; “Ironically, life in prison will be better than the hell she put Thomas, 8, and Anthony, 10, through,” Kerriann Kelly said.
NEW YORK — The “riotous, wicked and cruel” stepmother of Long Island, as portrayed by prosecutors, convicted by a jury last month of murder in the death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva, received a maximum sentence Tuesday of 25 years to life in prison.
“My only regret is that they don’t have a garage there,” the judge said of the prison where Angela Pollina will serve her sentence.
Pollina was found guilty on all counts in mid-March after a harrowing trial. Thomas’ father, former NYPD officer Michael Valva, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 to life in prison last year.
Thomas died of hypothermia in early 2020 after he and his brother were forced to sleep in the family’s freezing, unheated garage on a night when outside temperatures dipped below freezing, prosecutors said. The brothers, both with autism, had to sleep there as punishment for constantly urinating and defecating in the house, the researchers said.
Pollina’s defense team had argued that no matter how anyone might judge her parenting behavior, she did not murder the child. The jury disagreed and convicted her of all charges against her.
The Suffolk County woman, who prosecutors said was often the 8-year-old boy’s primary caregiver, was visibly upset after learning the guilty verdict. She included four counts of child endangerment as well as second-degree murder and followed just five hours of jury deliberation. The trial itself lasted two emotional weeks.
Initially, one juror appeared unwilling to convict, but another panel member later said it was a repetition of testimony from the medical examiner’s office that convinced the person to vote guilty. The judge also apparently told the jury afterwards that they made the correct decision in the case, as previously reported.
In the days after Thomas’s death, investigators unraveled a series of disturbing allegations — repeated, extreme punishment, starvation, being locked in a freezing garage for hours — at the hands of his father and his then-fiancée. Jurors were shown autopsy photos as well as videos showing the two boys shivering on the garage floor.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said those pieces were instrumental in making the prosecution’s case.
“He really created a compelling story of what happened to those two poor kids,” Tierney said last month.
On Tuesday, lead prosecutor Kerriann Kelly described that evidence as “something that made horror movie stuff come true.”
At trial, Kelly had tried to portray Pollina as an “evil stepmother” who tortured children out of frustration over their incontinence problems. Prosecutors said she refused to let them into the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home to shower, instead washing them down with cold water from a hose in the backyard.
And they urged the jury not to believe Pollina when she testified that she had tried to help Thomas, who had a core temperature of 76 degrees when he arrived at the hospital on the day of his death. Kelly said the woman “knew something was seriously wrong” with the boy and she didn’t even give him a blanket.
Pollina also did not indicate that she was sorry, Kelly said at her sentencing. There were five other children living in the house at the time, she said Tuesday, and Pollina also showed no remorse for what they suffered under her roof.
“She testified: ‘I was mean and cruel and those kids witnessed it,'” Kelly told the judge. “She Not once did she indicate that she was sorry about that either, and that says a lot, IMHO, who this defendant is.”
“Ironically, life in prison will be better than the hell he put 8-year-old Thomas and 10-year-old Anthony through,” he added. “And she’ll be surrounded by adults who will protect her from harm, something Thomas and Anthony absolutely experienced at school, absolutely not at home.”
When asked during her trial if she thought she had a duty to do better in terms of protecting children or treating them differently from other children, Pollina delivered the same seven-word response: “I did the best I could.” .
