Valva 911 Call Released: 'My Son's Not Breathing'

CENTER MORICHES, NY — A recording of the 911 call Michael Valva made on the day his son, Thomas, 8, froze to death in the garage of his Center Moriches home was released Wednesday.

The call was played during a pretrial hearing in Riverhead. "I need an ambulance immediately," Valva was heard saying. "My son's not breathing."

Valva, 40, a former NYPD officer and his fiancee, Angela Pollina, 42 were arrested on Jan. 17, 2020. Valva and Pollina were charged with second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, they face 25 years to life in prison. Both remain incarcerated without bail.

Valva was heard telling the 911 operator that Thomas had fallen down on concrete on the way to the bus and "banged his head." He said he'd put Thomas in the shower to "help him out a little bit."

In the recording, Valva was heard counting, as if doing chest compressions during CPR and telling the operator that Thomas' stomach was "filling up a lot" with air.

According to Newsday, Seventh Precinct Suffolk Police Officer Cassidy Lessard testified that when she got to the home that morning, Valva was not performing CPR, but was on his cellphone.

In February 2020, Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Kerriann Kelly painted a grim depiction of the day Thomas died. According to police, he was left overnight in the frigid garage in his father's home.

On Wednesday, according to Newsday, Valva "dabbed his eyes with tissue" in the courtroom. But according to the New York Post, Valva "showed no emotion" when shown photos of his son's soiled pants, shirt and socks.

Valva's attorney John LoTurco told Patch the defense has asked to suppress all Nest video and audio, as well as physical items, recovered from the Valva home "based upon the warrantless search conducted by the Suffolk County Police Department. The fourth amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits 'unreasonable searches and seizures' without a search warrant and without a search warrant exception recognized by the law."

He added: "The police claim the exception was exigency or emergency, yet we contend the emergency had ended once the ambulance departed to go to the hospital and all police personnel had vacated the residence. The police later returned to the residence, without a warrant and searched the residence. . .they later contend they had consent to seize the Nest video cameras from Angela Pollina. According to Pollini‘s lawyer, she will testify at these hearings that no such consent took place."

Prosecutors have said they were given permission to search, according to Newsday.

After Thomas' death, Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini unsealed five-count indictments against Valva and Pollina. Thomas and his brother Anthony, 10, were undernourished, begging for food, and foraging through the garbage at school because they were so hungry, Kelly said. Teachers asked Pollina and Valva to send more food to school with the boys, but that did not happen, she said.

Videos taken in the house a day and a half before Thomas died showed both boys in the garage, with Thomas shaking from the cold, saying he needed to use the bathroom, and looking at the camera "with pleading eyes for someone to help him," Kelly said.

On the night Thomas died, when was 19 degrees outside, he was left in the freezing garage with no blankets, she said.

Thomas' mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva had pleaded for help on her Twitter page; the Suffolk County Department of Social Services stated that CPS was notified about abuse more than a year before his death, News 12 said.

For years, Zubko-Valva had begged for help in a string of frantic Tweets.

In 2020, Zubko-Valva filed a $200 million wrongful death suit; she has been joined by scores of supporters since her son's death, demanding "Justice for Thomas."