Michael Valva trial: School flooded CPS hotline over safety concerns for ex-NYPD cop's children, claims principal
RIVERHEAD, NEW YORK: During the ongoing trial of ex-NYPD cop Michael Valva, a school principal expressed his worries for the disgraced officer's children. The school officials were so concerned for the safety of Valva's children that they bombarded a Child Protective Services (CPS) hotline with complaints in an effort to get them assistance.
East Moriches Elementary School principal Edward Schneyer said Valva, 43, and his then-fiancée Angela Pollina, 45, had resisted the school's concerns about the apparent mistreatment of his children Thomas, 8, and his elder brother Anthony. “We felt as a team we were not getting the results we wanted to see,” Schneyer told jurors on October 9, 2022, according to a report by Newday. “We decided as a team we were going to just flood the CPS hotline with calls.” Thomas died in January 2020 after spending up to 16 hours imprisoned in a frigid garage, according to the authorities. Valva is on trial for murder in connection with his death. Polina will be tried separately. According to Schneyer, Thomas, an autistic student, and Anthony appeared fine when they first enrolled in 2017. However, things started to change throughout the academic year and by the spring, they started to show up to class "very malnourished.”
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The Suffolk County Sheriff's Office received inmates Michael Valva and Angela Pollina late yesterday following their arrest for the murder of Thomas Valva. (1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/VYiDRKU7Q3
— Suffolk County Sheriff's Office (@Suffolk_Sheriff) January 25, 2020
The principal recalled Anthony, then 10 years old, showing up at school covered in feces and Thomas occasionally having scratches and bruises on his face, with both boys often cold and hungry. Despite many complaints to CPS, according to Schneyer, Valva reacted defensively when confronted by school staff and claimed the personnel were harassing his family. At that point, he claimed, the school made the decision to saturate the hotline with complaints, but to no avail.
Thomas was unresponsive when police arrived at the Valva residence on January 17, 2020. The boy was subsequently pronounced dead from hypothermia, according to the officials. When paramedics were called to the house, they observed Valva not showing any emotion while his son lay on the floor either dead or dying, according to a testimony given at the trial in September. Both Pollina and Valva have pled not guilty to the accusations.
Asserting on Monday that "90% of the CPS reports came back unfounded," Valva's attorney John Lo Turco questioned why CPS employees weren't invited to testify for the prosecution, claiming that "there's a big void in the narrative in the protection case." It is anticipated that the trial would last three weeks from when it started in late September in Riverhead.