RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — The Long Island woman who described herself as "evil" for making 8-year-old Thomas Valva sleep in a garage until he died of hypothermia was given a prison sentence Tuesday of 25 years to life.
Angela Pollina cried and put her head down when she was convicted of murdering Thomas, her ex-fiancé Michael Valva's son, at the family's Center Moriches home in January 2020. During last month's trial, she was also found guilty of four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
On Tuesday, the Riverhead courtroom erupted in clapping and cheers after Judge Timothy Mazzei announced Pollina's fate.
Mazzei said that his "only regret" in imposing the sentence is that the 45-year-old will not spend the rest of her life in a freezing garage.
"That's where you deserve to be for the rest of your natural life," he added.
Before the 8-year-old died, prosecutors said Thomas and his then-10-year-old brother Anthony were forced to sleep in their unheated garage, beaten, starved and denied access to the bathroom in the home.
Pollina admitted on the stand during her trial that she was abusive to the boys. Both were on the autism spectrum.
"I'm not justifying it," she testified. "I'm not saying it was right. It was evil. … I put them in the garage. Yes, I did."
Mazzei told Pollina, who remained silent throughout her sentencing on Tuesday, that she "tortured the boys."
Last year, another jury in a separate trial convicted Valva, a former NYPD officer, of the same charges. He is serving the same sentence as Pollina in an upstate prison.
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