Father's callous response to eight-year-old son freezing to death
The callous response a father had after his eight-year-old boy froze to death in a garage has been revealed in court.
Thomas Valva died on January 17 after he was allegedly forced to sleep in an unheated garage in a New York home as temperatures dropped to minus 6C.
Once the boy arrived in hospital his body temperature was just 24C, NBC New York reported.
Michael Valva, 40, and his 42-year-old fiancée, Angela Pollina, were charged on January 24 with second-degree murder in Thomas’s death.
In court, prosecutors said after Thomas was pronounced dead his father claimed, “I’ve been through more stressful things than this”, the US news outlet reported.
Valva pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Thomas had allegedly been physically and verbally abused and denied pillows, clothing, food and blankets, according to NBC.
A court heard Pollina allegedly sent videos of the boy to Valva, a NYPD officer.
They showed Thomas falling over in the garage and Valva allegedly said he was a “f***ing moron” and a “stupid f***ing son of a b***h”, NBC reported.
Last month Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said a committee would examine how the county’s social service department dealt with abuse allegations against the defendants concerning Thomas and five other children who lived with them.
Audio files recovered from the defendants’ Center Moriches home recorded the couple discussing the fact Thomas was suffering from hypothermia, had been washed with cold water, couldn’t walk and was “face-planting” on the concrete, Assistant District Attorney Laura Newcombe said in January.
The pair are expected back in court on February 24.
With AP
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