Thomas Valva’s mother was so atrocious to assure her adolescent sons from corruption that she took her case to the nation's top law administration officer.
Justyna Zubko-Valva wrote a abundant 75-page letter to U.S. Apostle General William Barr in July allurement for the Amends Department’s intervention.
“I cannot beddy-bye able-bodied at night alive that my three sons are afflicted to alive with their calumniating ancestor and his admirer ... who accomplish the best appalling and barbaric anatomy of adolescent corruption based on locking them in freezing algid barn in a winter time,” Zubko-Valva wrote in a foreshadowing.
Six months later, 8-year-old Thomas, a third grader at East Moriches Elementary School, was asleep from hypothermia. Suffolk authorities said his father, Michael Valva, an NYPD officer, and the father’s fiancee, Angela Pollina, afflicted Thomas to beddy-bye on the attic in the garage of their Centermost Moriches home as the alfresco temperature plummeted to 19 degrees. Thomas died on Jan. 17.
Valva, 40, and Pollina, 42, accept been accusable on allege of second-degree annihilation in Thomas' afterlife and four counts anniversary of endangering the abundance of a child, accompanying to declared corruption of Thomas and his beforehand brother, Anthony, 10. They pleaded not accusable and are actuality captivated afterwards bond in Suffolk jails.
Zubko-Valva afresh approved advice at altered levels of authority — from police, county amusing account agencies and the courts in Nassau and Suffolk, in accession to her letter to Barr. But her efforts concluded in a alternation of acknowledged setbacks that culminated added than two years ago, back she absent aegis of Anthony, Thomas and Andrew, 6, her youngest child.
Newsday advised bags of pages of documents, including cloister transcripts in both counties, Child Careful Services reports from several caseworkers, and assessments from court-appointed attorneys and the East Moriches academy district.
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The abstracts actualization systems intended to assure children ultimately abandoned assorted warnings, including those from Zubko-Valva, who painstakingly accurate the declared corruption of her sons.
The accusations against the ancestor and his fiancee — as able-bodied as Michael Valva's counterclaims of corruption allegedly committed by the mother, which were begin to be unsubstantiated — are contained in court filings in the annulment and aegis action amid Thomas’ parents. The cases spanned at atomic four board in two counties alpha in backward 2015.
Among the key findings:
Suffolk County Badge Commissioner Geraldine Hart has said board accept Thomas slept on the accurate attic of the barn on the night afore he died.
When an EMT accustomed at the family’s home Jan. 17, Thomas was benumbed and “cold to the touch,” prosecutors said. When he died afterwards that morning, Thomas' body temperature was aloof 76 degrees, Hart said.
A accustomed anatomy temperature is aural about a bulk of 98.6 degrees, and any temperature beneath 95 is advised hypothermia, said Dr. Fred Davis, accessory armchair of emergency anesthetic at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who said at Thomas' level, patients are "almost in a abeyant hibernation."
Suffolk Commune Apostle Timothy Sini, whose arrangement is investigating all of the contacts Thomas' ancestors had with the cloister system, CPS and added authorities, has raised the achievability of convening a appropriate admirable board to appraise the case. The case has sparked a cardinal of added probes.
A afflicted ancestors history
Zubko-Valva, 36, a New York City correction officer, and Valva were affiliated in 2004. By backward 2015, the ancestor of three had “abandoned” the family, affective out of their Valley Stream condo, Zubko-Valva declared in cloister papers. Zubko-Valva, in the papers, additionally accused her bedmate of cheating with Pollina. Valva filed for divorce.
Years earlier, according to documents, Zubko-Valva appear she suffered exact and banking corruption by Valva during an assimilation arrangement on Feb. 4, 2011, at the Safe Centermost LI, the Nassau County bureau that provides abutment to victims of calm violence.
“The calm abandon incidences Mrs. Zubko-Valva appear included, but were not bound to, Michael Valva aggressive to booty all of their money abroad from her [especially if she approved to involve the police], aggressive that he would lose his job if she complex the police, threats to book apocryphal badge belletrist adjoin her, babble and agreeable at her, antibacterial acreage in the home, and throwing items about the house,” wrote crisis centermost coordinator Leigh Buchman in a Sept. 15, 2017, letter to apostle Jason Barbara of New Hyde Park, who briefly represented Zubko-Valva. He did not acknowledgment a bulletin gluttonous comment.
Zubko-Valva, who is not an attorney, has insisted on representing herself in court.
Legal experts have questioned the acumen of abyssal the cloister system without the account of an attorney; Zubko-Valva has said no lawyer can apostle for her accouchement as fervently as she can.
Thomas, like his beforehand brother Anthony, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, according to cloister records. The boy accustomed appropriate apprenticeship services, anatomic analysis and accent therapy, the abstracts said.
Between October 2017 and February 2018, there were seven Adolescent Careful Casework belletrist alleging carelessness adjoin both parents, according to CPS case artisan testimony.
A Suffolk adjudicator afterwards absolved carelessness allegations adjoin the mother, which included her declared use of anatomical punishment and banishment them to blot a amber liquid, afterwards a balloon in which Valva’s affidavit adjoin his conflicting wife was accounted “less than credible.”
But alike afterwards a Suffolk CPS caseworker “saw bruises on Thomas’ buttocks and at the abject of his spine, which Thomas said were acquired by his father” on Jan. 15, 2018, the boys connected to alive with their father.
Police and CPS get involved
Over the aftermost bristles years, Nassau badge responded to a absolute of 21 calls to 911 from the family’s Valley Stream home — 11 of the calls fabricated by Valva and the added 10 from Zubko-Valva, said Nassau badge agent Det. Lt. Richard LeBrun, who added that Nassau badge notified the NYPD of all of its interactions with Valva.
The majority of the calls — 16 — were accompanying to actualization disputes, LeBrun said.
A badge address independent in the annulment paperwork shows Zubko-Valva appear — in clear detail — to badge on Aug. 4, 2016, that two of her sons were sexually abused by their father.
LeBrun said the sex corruption accusation was advised by the badge department’s Appropriate Victims Squad and Adolescent Careful Services. Afterwards a “thorough investigation, which included interviews and medical documentation, there was no affirmation to abutment this allegation.”
A CPS caseworker afterwards said in cloister affidavit that she was “concerned about the allegations because the accouchement had to go through several invasive exams."
In addition call from the mother to badge claiming the accouchement had not eaten in a day, the boys accustomed home with their father, who had a McDonald’s bag “filled with aliment in his hands,” LeBrun said. Zubko-Valva's address was afresh accounted unfounded.
Multiple allegations of adolescent corruption appear to the Statewide Central Register of Adolescent Corruption and Maltreatment or SCR hotline dating to September 2018, and advised by CPS, mirror what prosecutors accept declared the boys endured, including actuality kept in the algid barn and beggared of aliment as punishment.
Nevertheless, the boys' court-appointed attorney, Donna McCabe, offered the cloister a aglow analysis of the boys under the affliction of their father.
“Although they accomplished some ups and downs, their achievement was amazing overall,” McCabe wrote in 2018 cloister papers. “I heard Anthony, who had never abounding a acceptable academy before, apprehend with accuracy and understanding. All three boys are adequate and alloyed into the household. They showed me their room, their accouterments and told me about their routine.”
She said Pollina’s three daughters “love the Valva boys and amusement them like brothers,” adage she saw them dancing together. The boys, she said, batten of how “they acclaimed the holidays and what they adore eating.”
McCabe, who beneath an account request, said in an email that Thomas' afterlife was a tragedy and that she prays for the boys daily.
"My role as an apostle for the accouchement is no acting for a parent," McCabe wrote. "I advocated for Ms. Zubko-Valva to accept visitation. The Cloister afforded her abounding opportunities to see her children. For about two years she banned visitation, abrogation Mr. Valva as the alone ancestor these boys would have."
Boys' academy appear concerns
Nicole Papa, a special-education abecedary at East Moriches Elementary, in an undated “Valva Ancestors Concerns” memo, presented a abrupt adverse to McCabe's bold of the family.
Thomas and Anthony, declared as "sweet and loving" accouchement by academy commune employees, were not provided abundant aliment to get them through the academy day, Papa wrote. Anthony absent 11 pounds in nine months, while Thomas acquired aloof one batter in the above-mentioned 20 months, Papa wrote.
“Anthony and Thomas accept declared that they are not accustomed to eat breakfast because they did not use their manners, say acceptable morning to Angela, or were accomplishing nothing,” Papa wrote. “They accept appear in arrant because of this.”
“I generally accumulation them with atom bars, chips, bake-apple and abstract throughout the day,” she added.
In a added certificate from East Moriches schools, anachronous April 25, 2018, academy analyst Renee Emin bidding apropos about Anthony’s weight loss. “Anthony has developed in acme and should accept acquired weight,” Emin said. “Mr. Valva belletrist that Anthony has absent weight because he is added active, however, we accept asked the ancestors to accommodate added aliment during the academy day and they accept not.”
In an Oct. 15, 2018, CPS court-ordered analysis report, caseworker Melissa Estrada appear interviewing all three accouchement “separately and in private” in advanced of their academy arch — and all three said they were abundantly fed.
In the addendum about Thomas, the caseworker wrote: “He eats breakfast, cafeteria and banquet every night and that his stepmother Angela cooks for the ancestors every distinct night."
“Mr. Valva denied that the accouchement are anytime denied admission to food, are consistently supplied with breakfast, cafeteria at home and to school, bite and dinner," according to the report. "This has been accepted by this caseworker and the advancing account workers Jessica Lantz who has not appear apropos in the Valva home.”
Also noted was Zubko-Valva’s abridgement of acquaintance with the assigned CPS caseworker.
“Caseworker attempted to acquaintance biological mother Justyna Valva on abundant occasions via buzz belletrist and letters, unsuccessfully,” Estrada wrote. “It was appear that by advancing account artisan Lantz that Ms. Zubko-Valva has been contumacious with the cloister mandates or accepting any acquaintance with CPS.”
But five days afterwards Thomas died, a Suffolk County Ancestors Cloister adjudicator accepted emergency acting aegis of Anthony and Andrew to Zubko-Valva. And at a consecutive audition this month, the adjudicator saw no charge to specify added CPS monitoring.
Suffolk County’s Department of Amusing Casework Commissioner Frances Pierre beneath to allocution about the case. Pierre is a affiliate of an centralized analysis board appointed by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone to investigate the department’s administration of the case. The New York Accompaniment Arrangement of Accouchement of Ancestors Casework is additionally investigating. The Amends Department didn't animadversion on Zubko-Valva's letter to Barr.
A advancing aegis battle
The cloister file provides acumen on why Zubko-Valva lost custody of her accouchement in 2017. Board frequently bidding frustration toward Zubko-Valva.
When Zubko-Valva argued that Anthony should abide to appear a academy for disabled accouchement in Manhattan during the Sept. 6, 2017, audition — the day she absent aegis of the accouchement — Nassau Supreme Cloister Justice Hope Schwartz Zimmerman told her to sit bottomward and be quiet, according to paperwork. “Don’t talk,” the adjudicator told the agitated mother, “because you’re not authoritative any sense.”
Nassau County Cloister Adjudicator Francis Ricigliano, meanwhile, took Zubko-Valva to assignment at a July 15, 2017, audition afterwards she expressed apropos that Pollina — whom she declared Valva’s “paramour” — accompanied Valva back he best up his kids. Zubko-Valva said it afflicted the accouchement to see their ancestor in a new accord anon afterwards he “abandoned our family."
“What’s the aberration amid a admirer and a girlfriend?” the adjudicator asked afore advancement Zubko-Valva to break abroad from “bad words.”
After Thomas' death, the case was reassigned to the court's authoritative judge.
McCabe, the apostle who was appointed in March 2016 to represent Thomas and his brothers, additionally clashed frequently with Zubko-Valva. The mother accused McCabe of actuality added absorbed in advocating for her conflicting bedmate than her children. McCabe, during one cloister appearance, refuted Zubko-Valva’s affirmation that Anthony was abashed of his father.
In a July 2019 cloister appearance, afterwards McCabe said the accouchement were "not abject or malnourished," Zubko-Valva said the apostle was "completely ambiguous the court" and should be "severely punished" with "prison time."
McCabe additionally laid out a alternation of complaints adjoin the mother, including her attrition to a court-mandated cerebral examination.
Zubko-Valva “made demands that all sessions be videotaped," McCabe said, abacus that the doctor who ultimately conducted the assay abdicate the case afterwards Zubko-Valva "took pictures of the questions and answers on the exam."
A judge later noted that Zubko-Valva “submitted her cerebral testing annal from her application as a corrections officer," which she had passed.
McCabe additionally said it had been “impossible” for her to see the boys while with their mother. And back she saw them with their father, Zubko-Valva canceled their appointment and declared McCabe had “acted inappropriately” at a antecedent affair and the accouchement were “afraid” of her.
McCabe denied the claims and wrote in a address that she feared for the assurance of the accouchement beneath the mother's care.
Lucian Chalfen, a agent for the accompaniment cloister system, said a review of how the cases were handled is underway and said it would be "inappropriate for any of the board to animadversion as this is a awaiting bent matter."
“In the Nassau betrothed case, the authoritative adjudicator has asked for all the transcripts to be reviewed," he said. "We’re reviewing the case book to attending at absolutely what transpired and to see if aggregate was handled appropriately.”
Chalfen beneath to animadversion accurately on the 2017 move to admission aegis to Valva.
Dueling corruption accusations
On Oct. 31, 2017, added than a ages afterwards Zubko-Valva absent custody, CPS received a Statewide Central Register report alleging the mother was hitting her children, abrogation scrapes, bruises and cuts, according to records. It was additionally declared the mother suffered from brainy illness, that her action was breakable and she was butterfingers of caring for her children.
Zubko-Valva has maintained she never abject her accouchement and any belletrist of corruption on her allotment were fabricated by the boys' father.
On Dec. 19, 2017, the mother met with CPS analytic case artisan Michele Clark. She said the mother accepted she had “placed recording accessories in the children’s backpacks back they lived with her and visited the father,” according to a afterwards cloister adjustment from Suffolk Adjudicator Bernard Cheng.
Zubko-Valva was concerned, the cloister abstracts said, that the boys' father "was abrogation the accouchement in the algid afterwards shoes as discipline."
The mother additionally declared Valva got appropriate analysis from badge in Suffolk when she declared them during a actualization altercation on Dec. 31, 2017. She told the cloister that badge banned to booty a address from her.
“Three badge cars pulled up and went into the father’s home. They backward for about 15 minutes, afresh larboard afterwards speaking to the mother,” Cheng wrote. Suffolk badge could not anon verify the visit.
In January 2018, Suffolk CPS filed carelessness petitions adjoin both Valva and Zubko-Valva, alleging they anniversary had acclimated anatomical corruption on the boys.
The judge issued temporary aegis orders acute the parents to burden from arresting the children. Valva's case concluded with an break in ambition of dismissal, which allows allege to be absolved if a actor stays out of trouble.
Zubko-Valva had been visiting her accouchement unsupervised back accident custody, but afterwards the January 2018 carelessness petition, she was ordered to accept supervised custody. Her case went to trial.
On April 12, 2019, Cheng, who presided over her family cloister trial, wrote in an adjustment that he begin “insufficient affirmation to sustain a award of adolescent carelessness adjoin the mother.”
The adjudicator acutely criticized the prosecutor who argued the case, saying Suffolk Assistant County Apostle Randall Ratje’s closing arguments “did not apply on the allegations in the petition” but instead concentrated on "arguing that the mother was mentally ill and that she believes there is a cabal amid the ancestor and Adolescent Careful Casework to falsely allege her of adolescent neglect.”
The adjudicator additionally acclaimed the mother believed the allegations adjoin her “have been fabricated up by the ancestor in adjustment to accretion an advantage in the divorce" and said “certainly it seems odd" that complaints about actualization pickups and the mother speaking disparagingly about the father were included in a adolescent carelessness case.
Chalfen, the courts spokesman, said of the Suffolk Ancestors Cloister case: “Judge Cheng was absolutely absolute in this case and spent an disproportionate bulk of time on it and ordered added analysis and added medical visits for the children, which is not a accepted accident already the address is filed.”
Still, Zubko-Valva refused supervised visits with the accouchement afterwards the aftermost time she spent time with them Jan. 14, 2018, alleging a cabal amid CPS and the cloister system.
A few months afore Thomas died, a judge asked the mother four times during one cloister appearance if she capital to see the children, but she protested over the affair of supervised visits, according to a transcript.
The abutting time Zubko-Valva saw Thomas, he was in the morgue.
Reports: Corruption continues afterwards mother loses custody
The belletrist of corruption of the boys connected into 2019.
On Jan. 16, 2019, addition declared the accompaniment adolescent corruption hotline and appear Thomas had a atramentous eye.
The abutting month, addition address claimed his brother, Anthony, was “coming to academy with his clothes and haversack blood-soaked in urine. Anthony has been blockage in the barn and is not accustomed in his allowance due to him urinating in his bed.”
Anthony had a “foul odor and is acutely cold," the address said, adding: “The barn is not heated, authoritative the corruption excessive."
It’s cryptic what investigatory accomplish were taken, but Zubko-Valva said CPS quickly bankrupt the reports.
On May 14, 2019, a addition to the hotline declared Valva threw a book bag at Thomas, afresh 7, hitting him on the head. He had a abrasion and bang on his forehead area.
But back CPS board confronted Valva a anniversary later, the NYPD administrator told a assurance appraisal aggregation that it was Anthony who threw the book bag.
“Family is annoying as they feel they are actuality addled by the school,” the appraisal said. “They do not appetite the accouchement to be interviewed at the academy and do not acquiesce CW [caseworker] to account added children. Analysis to continue.”
Despite the red flags, the aggregation bent the accouchement were not in "immediate or approaching danger," and recommended annihilation be done at the time.
Anthony Zenkus, who teaches about ancestors abandon and agony at Columbia University and Adelphi University, acclaimed that best adolescent careful cases do not acceleration to the akin of a adolescent actuality removed from a parent. The bureau aboriginal tries to strengthen the family, putting casework in place, such as teaching them bigger parenting skills, Zenkus said.
“There charge be an approaching crisis of corruption or that corruption has already occurred,” Zenkus said.
In both Nassau and Suffolk, cases generally go before an bureau abatement board afore a adolescent is taken out of the home. A ancestors cloister adjudicator additionally charge accept the recommendation, he said.
“There charge be a around-the-clock arrangement of corruption and carelessness that’s aggressive to intervention,” said Jeffrey Reynolds, admiral of the Mineola-based Ancestors and Accouchement Association.
A mother's aftermost bid to save her child
Inside a Mineola attorneys on Sept. 10, the mother warned Accompaniment Supreme Cloister Amends Joseph Lorintz that her kid’s “life is in danger."
“I accumulate cogent to your account multiple, assorted times,” Zubko-Valva pleaded, according to a transcript. “I accumulate adhering the belletrist that were created from Accompaniment Central Registrar filed by, I’m assuming, teachers, on the CPS hotline apropos awfully apropos bearings with my children. The agents are, and alike the parents from that school, complain about accouchement attractive for aliment on the floor, your honor.”
Lorintz, who recused himself from the case afterwards Thomas' death, replied: “Ms. Valva, I’m arresting you because you’ve now afresh what you’ve aloof said numerous, abundant times. I’ve heard what you said and I’ve told you that I am not CPS. I am not Adolescent Careful Casework … I accept told you that your complaints and apropos charge to be advised by the able agencies that investigate adolescent abuse.”
Zubko-Valva answered: “Your Honor, the CPS is not accomplishing their job.”
Lorintz told her: “What would you like me to do though? I am not CPS. I cannot physically go to his home and conduct an investigation.”
Zubko-Valva afresh pleaded for help, suggesting the adjudicator amendment the boys’ agents to affirm in court.
Lorintz replied: “We will accept a trial.”
Zubko-Valva ominously told the judge: “But this cannot delay until balloon because his activity is in danger.”
Thomas Valva died 129 canicule later.
With David Olson
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's chief bent amends reporter. She began alive at Newsday in 2012 and ahead covered bounded government.
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