Pollina Sobs On Stand During Thomas Valva's Murder Trial: 'I Was Evil'

LONG ISLAND, NY — Angela Pollina sobbed on the stand Tuesday as she testified about what happened on the day Thomas Valva, 8, died — and admitted forcing Thomas and his older brother, both autistic, to sleep in a frigid garage.

"I was evil," she said.

Pollina — former fiancée of Michael Valva, an ex-NYPD officer convicted of murder in the death of his 8-year-old son Thomas, who died of hypothermia after being forced to sleep in his father's frigid garage — will be cross-examined by the prosecution Wednesday.

Matthew Tuohy, Pollina's defense attorney, said Pollina will be the only witness he calls to the stand. After the prosecution cross-examines Pollina, closing arguments will follow and then, the jury will deliberate.

Tuohy has maintained Pollina's innocence from the start of the proceedings. "So far, the evidence is emotionally driven, but the facts show clearly she is not guilty of a murder and that it's Valva that acted alone in killing his son."

Tuohy added: "He did it. He committed the acts. And she tried to help the boy."

Valva and Pollina were arrested Jan. 24, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Each faced 25 years to life in prison, and both pleaded not guilty.

Jurors convicted Valva of second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child in Thomas' death. The boy froze to death in the Center Moriches garage. His father was sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars.

On Tuesday, Pollina described the morning of Jan. 17, 2020. The night before, Pollina said she was tired and had taken her mother for surgery that day; she got her three daughters' clothes ready for the next day, made sure they were showered, and went to bed by 8:30 p.m. Valva, she said, was downstairs helping his sons; he came to bed later, she said.

When asked if she was aware that Thomas and Anthony were sleeping in the garage, she said she was, and that both she and Michael agreed to make them sleep there.

The next morning she said she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and showered before the girls woke up. Her girls got up and dressed, "the usual" and wanted cookies and decaf tea, she said. She left at 7:30 a.m. to take her twin daughters for math help and returned, calling for her youngest daughter to get up and ready for school.

She and Valva, she said, spent some time "chit-chatting" in the kitchen about bills, "the usual," she said again.

Soon, she heard Valva screaming after opening the garage door, saying that Thomas had "shi---- himself and that he was a mess," she said. "Anthony was dry but Thomas was full of poop, on the back of his pants and on his shirt," Pollina said. "I was very upset and disappointed."

Pollina went back to the kitchen to pay bills and wait for her daughter, when she heard "screaming from the backyard. I heard him (Valva) yell, 'you f------ idiot!' I yelled for him to lower his voice," she said.

She pried the blinds open looked outside and saw Thomas, "standing directly in front of the window, his hands on his b---," she said. "There were soapsuds on the floor. Michael put down the hose. I just shook my head. I said, 'what the f---,'" she said. "I was shocked by what I saw."

Valva, she said, had a temper than went from zero to 100 quickly. "He had taken the punishment to a whole different level," she said.

When asked, Pollina said yes, she was concerned that the neigbhors would hear Valva yelling. "It was embarrassing and it was very upsetting to me."

Pollina said Valva came "storming in" and she next heard yelling in the garage.

"He threw the door open and told me Thomas had fallen and hit his face on the concrete and we couldn't send him to school," Pollina said.

In a video shown earlier in the proceedings, Pollina asked Valva why Thomas had fallen. "Because he's cold," Valva said. "Boo f------ hoo."

Pollina said she told Valva school officials would think he had beaten up Thomas, rather than him having fallen, something that had happened in the past.

Next, she said, Valva "went in the bathroom to get bandages to fix up his boo boos."

She added that Thomas "didn't appear to be in any kind of danger." He was crying and uncomfortable, she said.

She went to help her daughter with her spelling words as she did every Friday and the youngest Valva boy was asking for a snack, so she told him to get a granola bar, Pollina said. "Everything was happening so fast," she said. "It was a hectic morning."

Pollina said she didn't go to Thomas; she assumed Valva was caring for him. "He didn't appear to be in major danger," she said again. "It looked like a typical fall."

Pollina said there was a rush to get the children ready for the bus.

Thomas, she said again, "did not appear to be in any danger."

After the kids were on the bus, Pollina said she heard Valva yelling at Thomas again. "I heard a slap; he was screaming 'Are you alive?' 'Are you alive?' I went in and told him to get his hands off his mouth."

In the video shown by the prosecution, Pollina was heard telling Valva to get his hands off Thomas' mouth.

Valva, she said, "can get very irate. He was flipping out."

She went back in the kitchen and said Valva was bandaging up Thomas and wiping the blood from his nose.

Tyrene Rodgriguez, the housekeeper, arrived, and Pollina said the two engaged in friendly conversation. Valva came in calmly and asked to see her in the garage, she said.

"Thomas was sitting on the garage floor," she said, with no shirt, a towel covering him, and sweatpants.

"I sat on the ground. He sat on my lap. He was crying, very uncomfortable and in pain. He was grinding his teeth" — something Pollina said he did at night — "and I put my finger near his mouth and he bit at it," she said. "I wiped his tears," she said.

"I put my hand on his forehead to feel the bump and wipe his nose and he said, 'Ow, ow, ow,'" Pollina said, sobbing. Valva said Thomas needed to use the bathroom and she said Thomas got off her lap and stood on his own.

Valva took the boy to the bathroom — Pollina said Valva's arrangment with his children's mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, dictated that she could not feed, bathe, dress, or wash the boys in any way. Pollina said she took the towel, which had urine on it, and threw it at Valva.

Thomas, she said, was cold. "But he didn't appear to be in immediate danger."

Valva took Thomas in his arms and brought him to the basement, Pollina said. "I don't think he needed assistance," she said. "I think maybe Mike wanted to console him; he knew what he did was wrong. At that point, Mike was calm."

Thomas, she said, was on the toilet and Valva went to turn off the valve to the outside water. She said she was that wasn't important, he should be staying with his son until he was through on the toilet, she said.

Valva then told her he wanted to put Thomas in the bath to clean him.

"I said, 'Absolutely not!'" Pollina said. "He was already shivering. I told him to use toilet paper; I had blankets. He just hosed him off, now he wanted to put him in a bath?" Common sense said he shouldn't do that, Pollina said.

Pollina went upstairs to get a clean towel and took the space heater out of her youngest daughter's room, she said.

When she got back to the basement, Pollina said she made a left for the couch but Thomas wasn't there, he was in the bathroom in the tub.

"I said, 'What the f--- are you doing?'"

Crying, Pollina said, when she looked at Thomas, "His eyes were closed. I called his name out and he didn't answer me. I called him again. He didn't answer. I said, 'Mike, he's not answering me.' Mike grabbed my hand and put his fingers on my chest and Thomas' chest and said, 'He's not breathing!'"

Pollina said she panicked, told Valva to begin CPR and ran upstairs for a phone to call 911.

They put 911 on speaker phone and the dispatcher told Valva Thomas shouldn't be on a couch but instead, on a flat surface. Rodriguez came down to help, she said.

EMTs arrived and used a defribrillator, she said, then took Thomas away.

Pollina said while she hadn't thought Thomas wasn't in danger, when he didn't answer her and his eyes were closed, she knew he was.

Tuohy then asked a series of questions about Pollina's childhood and relationship with Valva that sparked objections, which were sustained, by the prosecution.

Pollina said her home sold in 2016 and she and Valva and her children stayed with her parents until they bought the Bittersweet Lane home in 2017. In September of that year, Valva gained custody of his boys, who had, until that time, never had a sleepover with Pollina and the girls, she said.

When asked about the incontinence issues, Pollina said they began "on the very first night" and that they progressed until they became an issue between her and Valva. Food was also an issue, Pollina said. She cooked for all the kids and one night Thomas said he didn't want to finish his meal. Pollina said she forced him to eat it and he threw up in his bed the next morning. After that, she said, Valva fed his boys and "portioned out" how much food they got at meals.

She said she noticed the boys began losing weight during football and they went to a doctor who suggested Boost. Valva, she said, bought the boys a different shake that was made for adults and said it make the "peeing worse" and gave Thomas diarrhea.

"I tried to speak to him about it and it got nowhere," she said.

At first, Pollina said, Valva worked a shift fom 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. in his NYPD job; when he changed to a later shift "things got a lot worse," she said. The incontinence, she said, was far worse and she suggested Valva sleep in the boys' room like their biological mother did. Valva, Pollina said, did it once.

Because she was unable to clean them or have any contact with the boys, Pollina said it was "very hard. Very difficult." She couldn't sleep with the boys to soothe them and the escalating issues with incontinence were an issue, she said.

"It made me very angry," Pollina said.

Pollina said she took out her anger with Valva on the boys.

"Yes, I was wrong. Yes, I was evil," she said. "I was horrible. I'm not justifying it. I took it out on them." And, she said, "I exiled them."

While she said she was not physically abusive, there was one night when she dragged Thomas down the stairs and forced him into the garage, she said.

She also said the older Valva boy triggered her anger when he "touched himself" and put his hand down his pants in front of her daughters. She admitted to Tuohy, who asked if she was "fixated" on the issue, that she was. She said she felt the boys' father should have discussed the issue with him.

When asked, after Thomas' death, if she hid evidence — earlier, the prosecution said she erased videos and changed passwords — Pollina said, "I did."

She added: "I did it for him — and for myself. It was wrong."

Earlier in the day, Tuohy said Pollina had been ready to testify since the previous day. "She's ready to go," he said.

The prosecution continued Tuesday morning with the questioning of Suffolk Police Sgt. Norberto Flores. Assistant District Attorney Kerriann Kelly also showed videos of the morning Thomas died, including the video that showed him falling down repeatedly outside and Valva screaming at him to "Get up!" The video was also played where, when asked by her youngest daughter why Thomas kept falling, Pollina said, "He's hypothermic."

Tuohy said, when speaking to reporters during the break, that "some of those videos were putting me to sleep."

He then said the prosecution was trying to paint a picture of Pollina acting with depraved indifference, but instead, she tried to hellp Thomas, chastising Valva for bathing him and bringing blankets and a heater.

Of Pollina saying Thomas was hypothermic, Tuohy said it was an "observation. It was not a diagnosis."

Pollina, Tuohy said, did not realize Thomas was in "grave danger" and things escalated because of Valva.

"She's going to own up to all of the failures, bad decisions, and bad acts. She's going to give a vivid description of what happened that morning," Tuohy said. "But she's not a part of why he died."

He added that she "has a lot of regrets. She's in a bad spot. If she cries, it looks contrived. If she doesn't cry it looks like she has no feelings. She's told me, 'I can't believe that's me,'" Tuohy said.

Tuohy also said his client was nervous and struggling.

"She didn't commit murder," he said. "Finding her guilty of a murder she didn't commit is not going to give closure."

He also said Valva and Pollina were overwhelmed with caring for boys who had challenges.

Pollina's mother and sister were present in the courtoom.

Gino Cali, the father of her youngest daughter, was also present at the proceedings; hespoke out against Pollina Monday.

Opening arguments were heard last week. Since then, teachers and the principal from East Moriches Elementary School have offered emotional testimony, as they did in Valva's trial, describing the boys, who came to school bruised, soaked in urine, starving, and always cold. Detectives and others who responded to the home have also testified.

During Valva's trial, one witness, a plumber, said he saw Pollina throw a child down the stairs. There was also evidence shown of texts reflecting Pollina's frustration with the incontinence of Thomas and his older brother and her stating that she did not want them in the house. Valva's defense team painted an image of Valva as a man stressed over finances, who had nowhere to go with his boys if he had to leave the home he shared with Pollina.

Thomas and his brother were forced to sleep in the frigid garage as temperatures outside plummeted to 19 degrees, prosecutors said. When he died, Thomas' body temperature was 76.1 degrees, 20 degrees lower than it should have been.

Thomas' mother Justyna Zubko-Valva pleaded for help on her Twitter page before her son died. In 2020, Zubko-Valva filed a $200 million wrongful death suit.

Zubko-Valva has not responded to requests for comment.

In June, a judge ruled that portions of the $200 million lawsuit filed by Zubko-Valva after Thomas died can move forward, a judge ruled.