Child protective system to blame in freezing death of ex-NYPD cop’s 8-year-old son, DA says: ‘Nothing was done to help’

The years of abuse suffered by little Thomas Valva — the autistic boy whose ex-NYPD cop dad and stepmom were convicted of murder in his freezing death — were kept under wraps thanks to the secretive child protective system, according to a scathing new grand jury report.

New York’s restrictive privacy laws kept complaints about the ongoing abuse of the helpless 8-year-old boy sealed until it was too late, deeming the claims “unfounded” and private, the 75-page report sanctioned by Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney found.

The Child Protective Services Division of the county’s Department of Social Services continued to keep the reports secret even after the convictions of Michael Valva and his wife Angela Polina — as the grand jury sought to get to the bottom of all the missed signals in the abuse of Thomas and his brother, Tierney said.

“These boys had been suffering for far too long, and nothing was done to help them despite 11 different reports to CPS,” Tierney said at a press briefing on Thursday.

“They were made by trained professionals, they were made by mandatory reporters under the law, trained education staff at the elementary school,” he said.

“All of those 11 reports were made prior to the death of that child. No one looking at this can come to any other conclusion other than CPS failed these boys, failed these boys miserably, and as a result, Thomas died.”

Valva, 44, and Polina, 46, were found guilty in the boy’s heartbreaking 2020 death after he was left locked in a freezing garage overnight without a blanket or protective clothing.

Thomas died of hypothermia after being exposed to freezing temperatures for up to 16 hours, with the mercury dipping below 20 degrees, authorities said.

His older brother Anthony, then 10, somehow survived the same heinous treatment, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the pair’s exile to the garage was the culmination of a pattern of abuse — the principal at Thomas’ school testified at trial that educators had made a slew of calls to CPS over concerns the brothers were being abused at home.

“I will beat them until they bleed,” Valva once texted Polina about the two boys. “It is the only thing that works.”

Both Valva and Polina — described as a “monster mom” in court — were hit with state prison sentences of 25 years to life.

School officials said the boys were often disheveled and bruised and were so underfed that educators caught them scrounging for food on the floor.

An emergency worker who fought to save little Thomas testified at trial that the ex-cop had “no emotion, no sense of concern,” for his son when first responders showed up at the Center Moriches home.

Valva claimed he found his son unconscious after the boy hit his head on a door frame.

Outrage over the case prompted Tierney to convene the grand jury, which probed the boy’s senseless death over six months — encountering CPS hurdles at every turn.

“The state statute allows these materials to be hidden from public scrutiny, law enforcement and even from a grand jury investigating the death of a child,” the prosecutor said in a statement. “This backwards law must be changed. The system we currently have to protect our children is a recipe for disaster.

“It’s unconscionable that even in a case such as this, no one, not even a district attorney, superior court judge or state advisory board can obtain prior reports that CPS has arbitrarily and erroneously deemed “unfounded,” the statement said.

Tierney said Thursday that the Dept. of Social Services investigates reports of suspected child abuse, but if the allegations are proven to be unfounded, the report “simply disappears.”

“Now with regard to the reports before Thomas’s death, shockingly 10 of those 11 reports about maltreatment and child abuse filed by teachers and staff at East Moriches Elementary School prior to Thomas’ death were classified by Suffolk County CPS as unfounded,” he told reporters.

“This is the key takeaway from this grand jury’s report,” Tierney said. “It means we have no idea why Suffolk County CPS deemed those reports unfounded and we have no idea what if any investigative steps that he took.”

The grand jury probe found that the agency “effectively thwarted” attempts to find the answer, Tierney said.

The report issued a series of recommendations to fix the law, including that CPS reports on suspected child abuse be unsealed for grand jury or law enforcement investigations, and new rules on when unfounded findings can be available to investigators.

“The law simply cannot allow these reports to remain hidden, especially where children have been abused, especially where a child has died,” Tierney said. “There has to be accountability.”

The panel interviewed 27 witnesses about Thomas’ death, prosecutors said.

State CPS officials did not respond to a request for comment.