Child Protective Services Ignored Complaints Against NYPD Officer A Year Before Child Froze to Death
Richard Moorhead
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New York’s Office of Children and Family Services is in hot water after a New York Police Department Officer is being charged with second degree murder in the death of his own son, one year after the child protective agency dismissed a complaint against Michael Valva alleging the officer was mistreating another one of his children.
Thomas Valva, eight years old, died in January of hypothermia when his parents, Michael Valva and Angela Pollina, locked him in a garage overnight. The child was autistic, and his parents are both being charged with second degree murder as a result of his death.
Sadly, the death of the eight year old boy appears to have been entirely preventable. In February 2019, the Office of Children and Family Services received an anonymous complaint in regards to Valva’s treatment of his other son, Anthony. An anonymous whistleblower, who appears likely to have been a schoolteacher, claimed that Anthony was arriving at school soaked in urine.
Michael Valva was apparently locking the boy in his garage because he was wetting the bed. Thomas Valva was found dead in the same garage less than a year later.
The complaints against the police officer appear to have been entirely ignored for unclear reasons. Agency documents reveal that the complaint was wholly dismissed less than one day after it was submitted to the child protective office.
Family photos reveal that Valva has at least six children.
Valva’s ex-wife, Justyna Zubko-Valva, had reportedly been reporting him to the agency for routinely abusing his children. She says that the now-disgraced cop had been beating and starving his own children, in addition to locking them in the garage. Zubko-Valva is Thomas’ mother, and lost custody of her children when she divorced Valva.
New York’s bureaucratic agency devoted to the welfare of at-risk children appears entirely asleep at the wheel when it comes to doing their due diligence in protecting the most innocent members of society.
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