'I am filled with shame': Ex-NYPD officer sentenced in son's freezing death on LI

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (PIX11) – Former NYPD police officer Michael Valva was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Thursday for the hypothermia death of his 8-year-old son, Thomas, in 2020.

Before a packed courtroom, Valva broke down as he expressed remorse.

“I am filled with shame, broken and grief-stricken,” Valva said, as he stood before Judge William Condon in Suffolk Criminal Court in Riverhead. “I loved Thomas with all my heart…I did not want my son to die.”

The judge said he knew Valva did not intentionally kill his son but noted the child’s death in a freezing garage on Jan. 17, 2020, involved a crime of depraved indifference to human life, after years of abuse and starvation. The judge also spoke of Valva’s treatment of his two older sons – both on the autism spectrum. 

“He was a warden who starved and abusively punished them,” the judge said.

Earlier, the judge looked at everyone assembled for the sentencing and asked, “How did all of us, as a community, allow this to happen?”

The boy’s mother, Justyna Valva-Zubko, was not present in court. She is suing Suffolk County and its division of child services for failure to protect her three sons, who were in the custody of Valva and his fiancée, Angela Pollina. Pollina faces a separate murder trial in early 2023.

Valva’s lawyers on Thursday repeated their claims that Pollina was the abusive parent in the household.

“I failed to provide a home that was safe,” Valva told the court. “I lost focus on how to be a good father.”

At least 10 of the jurors who delivered a guilty verdict in the case were in court for the sentencing.

During the trial, home surveillance footage was shown to the jurors. In one clip, 8-year-old Thomas was seen freezing in the garage on a 19-degree morning, after he was sent to sleep there because he’d soiled his pajamas. At one point, Thomas face-planted on the hard, concrete floor, the video showed.