A DISGRACED NYPD police officer charged with murdering his son sobbed as the harrowing call he made on the day of the youngster’s death was played in court.
Michael Valva was arrested along with his fiancée Angela Pollina, 42, after cops said his eight-year-old autistic son Thomas froze to death in their unheated garage in Center Moriches, New York last January.
Valva, 40, was visibly choked up as the chilling 911 call was played during the pre-trial hearing held at Suffolk County Supreme Court yesterday.
The cop reportedly told the phone operator that his son Thomas had “stopped breathing”, The New York Post reports.
He claimed that the youngster had fallen and banged his head.
Valva said: “I don’t know if he’s breathing or not. His heart stopped. He banged his head pretty good.”
It was heard on the call that Valva questioned the 911 operator as he asked whether it was normal for his son’s stomach to be “filling up with air” as CPR was being given.
The dispatcher asked: “Are you sure he’s not breathing?”
Valva reportedly responded: “I don’t know to be honest”, as he laughed nervously.
Paramedics arrived at their Long Island home and the 40-year-old can be heard pleading: "Please help me".
Valva and Pollina were charged with second-degree murder and face 25 years to life in jail if convicted.
It was reported that former cop Valva resigned from the force in October but still manages to keep his police pension.
Lawyer John LoTurco told Patch that he was suspended without pay but his resignation means Valva’s pension would be “untouched”.
Thomas was left overnight in his father’s freezing garage when temperatures plummeted last January.
The child's mother Justyna Zubko-Valva filed a $200 million wrongful death lawsuit in June against Suffolk County officials and school representatives, claiming her son's abuse was apparent before his death.
Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Kerriann Kelly said last February that Thomas and his brother Anthony, 10, were begging for food and foraging through the garbage at school because they were undernourished.
The ADA said teachers told Pollina and Valva to send the boys with more food, but that didn't happen.
Footage taken in the house just two days before Thomas died showed both him and his brother in the garage shaking from the cold.
Ms. Kelly said that Thomas said he needed to use the bathroom as he looked at the camera "with pleading eyes for someone to help him".
The complaint read: "Tommy's death was not only foreseeable but completely preventable."
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