Mom of tragic LI boy who froze to death in NYPD dad’s garage demands more settlement dough
The mother of tragic Long Island 8-year-old Tommy Valva — who was tortured and left to freeze to death in his NYPD dad’s garage — is reportedly balking at a $2 million settlement for herself and instead wants to get her hands on more than twice that.
Justyna Zubko-Valva had agreed earlier this month to a total $9 million settlement that would give her lawyers $3 million, her $2 million and then split $4 million evenly between two trusts for her pair of surviving teenage sons.
The mom had sued Suffolk County for $200 million in 2022 for failing to protect her son Tommy despite repeated complaints of abuse and neglect that his teachers reported to the county’s Child Protective Services.
Her suit also included accusations that the judge who gave her former husband temporary shared custody of Tommy and their two other boys erred in taking away the kids.
She lost full custody for refusing to undergo a psych evaluation as part of their court battle.
While Zubko-Valvo had already agreed to the $9 million settlement and split arrangement involving Tommy’s death, she is now fighting to receive $5.5 million from the pot — leaving just $250,000 for each of her two kids’ trusts, Newsday said.
The mom claims she needs to control the massive extra amount of money to take care of her children, including by properly providing for their education, the outlet said.
“I’m not going to be able to go back to work and leave my children in the situation where they’re still trying to heal from the horrific abuse that they experienced,” Zubko-Valva said in the suit, referring to the trauma the two other boys suffered, too, according to the outlet.
US Magistrate Judge Arlene Lindsay, who had approved the prior settlement arrangement, said Zubko-Valva’s new objections risk holding up the payments even longer.
Those payments include $500,000 she told the court she needed immediately to keep her house from foreclosure.
Lindsay said the settlement trusts could be arranged to give Zubko-Valva access to the children’s money for their day-to-day care.
Zubko-Valva’s lawyers have till Jan. 15 to submit a new proposal and have given the county an additional week after for it to respond before the next Jan. 30 court date before a federal judge.
Tommy’s senseless death in January 2020 shook the region.
The boy froze to death after his cop dad, Michael Valva, and his then-fiancée, Angela Pollina, repeatedly abused the autistic child and forced him to sleep in sub-zero temperatures with no blanket in an unheated garage.
Both adults were later convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
