The “emaciated” 8-year-old son of ex-NYPD cop Michael Valva was so neglected at home, he had to eat crumbs off the schoolhouse floor, a Long Island teacher sobbed as she testified at the disgraced officer’s murder trial Monday.
Thomas Valva, who was autistic, had told staffers at East Moriches Elementary School that he was hungry so many times, second-grade teacher Michelle Cagliano began to keep a journal every time he asked for the food, she told jurors through tears, Newsday reported.
“He was so skinny,” Cagliano testified. “I could feel the bones in his body.”
She said she would send Thomas to the school cafeteria for breakfast or for granola bars and other snacks to quell his hunger.
When the boy soiled his pants in September 2018 after Cagliano gave him a pear and crackers as a snack, Valva’s irate then-fiancée, Angela Pollina, blamed her for the accident.
“She was not happy with me,” Cagliano testified.
She said Valva then chastised her not to give Thomas snacks, claiming the child was a liar who manipulated teachers into giving him food, the outlet reported.
The youngster gained weight and his behavior improved in November 2018, but by January 2019 he was again “very, very skinny, very emaciated, very hungry,” Cagliano testified.
Valva, 43, is now on trial on murder charges for allegedly letting Thomas freeze to death by locking the child in an unheated garage in the family home he shared with Pollina. Thomas’ brother Anthony, then 10, survived the vicious punishment.
Valva is facing murder charges for allegedly letting his son Thomas freeze to death in a garage. Dennis A. ClarkValva and Pollina, 45, are being tried separately in the tragic boy’s January 2020 death from hypothermia.
Last week, the school’s principal testified that educators became so worried about the boys’ safety — and so weary of their father rebuffing their inquiries — that they flooded a Child Protective Services hotline in a desperate attempt to get them help.
Thomas Valva was found unresponsive once cops came to his home. Dennis A. Clark“We felt as a team we were not getting the results we wanted to see,” principal Edward Schneyer testified. “We decided as a team we were going to just flood the CPS hotline with calls.”
On Jan. 17, 2020, cops were called to the Valva home and found Thomas unresponsive.
Valva claimed the boy had fallen but showed no emotion as paramedics worked in vain to try to save his young son’s life, EMTs testified at the trial.
