Probes skirted rules in NY
Caseworkers bypassed required steps prior to homicides of 2 children
Two child homicides in New York this year had previously been the subject of Child Protective Services investigations. And in the years preceding the deaths, caseworkers assigned to investigate complaints those children were being abused apparently bypassed key, required steps before determining the complaints were unfounded, according to interviews and records obtained by the Times Union.
The state Office of Children and Family Services, which examines CPS handling of child death cases, has in the past also repeatedly flagged the same problems that were apparent in the investigations that unfolded before this year’s deaths of 8-year-old Thomas Valva and 6-year-old Davonte Paul.
After Thomas Valva froze to death Jan. 17 in a garage on Long Island, his father, Michael Valva, who is a police officer, and Valva’s girlfriend Angela Pollina were charged with second-degree murder. The father allegedly placed Thomas in a bathtub to attempt to warm his body before calling 911. Both have pleaded not guilty and say the death was an accident.
After Davonte Paul froze to death in Troy three weeks later, his mother’s boyfriend, Kevin Cox, was charged with second-degree murder. In that case, Davonte’s mother initially claimed her son had drowned in the bathtub, a story that quickly fell apart. Cox has pleaded not guilty.
Eight months before Davonte froze to death, his father, Freeston Paul, called the statewide hotline for Child Protective Services alleging the little boy was being abused by Cox in the care of his mother, Nicole Bauer.
Paul told the hotline operator that Cox was “physically aggressive towards the mother” in the boy’s presence, and “grabs and restrains” Davonte in an “aggressive fashion causing the child to become upset and cry.” The father also told the operator that Cox “throws water onto
Davonte to wake him up,” according to CPS records of the call obtained by the Times Union.
Under state laws and regulations, the complaint should have prompted Child Protective Services caseworkers to take certain investigative steps, including interviewing the person accused of committing the abuse.
But CPS officials never interviewed Cox in response to any of the father’s complaints over the years, according to Paul. In addition, Paul said that Ulster County CPS at times did not visit Bauer’s residence in response to the complaints, which is also required.
CPS records in the Valva case raise similar questions, showing that a Suffolk County CPS worker immediately closed investigations into at least three disturbing complaints. They were closed as “duplicates” of prior complaints, even though the complaints contained new, distinct allegations. The closing of those investigations also appears to contradict CPS requirements.
County Child Protective Services offices around New York are a key part of New York’s Family Courts, serving a function similar to how a police department interacts with criminal courts. But Family Court judges can order CPS investigations and then bear the responsibility for making sure they are performed appropriately. When Family Court judges make decisions of whether allegations of abuse are credible, determinations made by CPS caseworkers play a major role.
For their part, CPS workers say they carry caseloads that are too heavy and are responsible for significant paperwork requirements. Like many officials involved with Family Court, they have the difficult task of deciding whether abuse and neglect allegations are legitimate, or simply the remains of a bitter breakup.
Unlike some officials that play key roles in Family Court, child protective workers have highly specific rules for conducting investigations. Many are outlined in a 451-page manual published by the Office of Children and Family Services that is gleaned from the governing laws and regulations.
If a child dies whose case had previously been subject to CPS complaints, OCFS is legally required to issue a report reviewing the actions of CPS officials within six months. The resulting reviews don’t name victims, child welfare officials, or anyone else, but the date of death makes it possible to identify the case being discussed. A Times Union review shows the shortfalls in the CPS investigations of Paul and Valva had also existed in other CPS investigations that preceded a child’s homicide.
There is an effort underway to address the systemic issues. In early March, a new child fatality review team overseen by OCFS convened a meeting at its office in Rensselaer County, which for the first time will have a statewide reach.
Margaret Bissell, who heads the internal OCFS review team that issues the reports, said in a presentation that the task force has the goal of “improving practices and looking at things through a preventive lens.”
The new committee, she said, will seek to elevate practices that have been successful for 19 regional child-fatality review teams around the state.
Bissell also outlined the basic steps that child welfare workers in New York are obligated by law to perform during investigations.
“They have to conduct home visits,” Bissell said. “They have to speak to the alleged victim, the parents, the caregivers and the collateral contacts.”
Bissell also confirmed in an interview that CPS workers are also supposed to interview the alleged abuser.
“Certainly, yes, you have to be able to locate that person, to be able to speak to them,” Bissell said. “You have to do everything possible.”
An instructive example of the kinds of shortcomings OCFS at times flags can be found in its scathing report following the 2016 death of 6-year Zymere Perkins of Harlem, after he was bludgeoned to death with a broomstick by his mother’s boyfriend.
Despite getting numerous complaints that the mother’s boyfriend was seriously abusive, Manhattan child protective services workers often did not interview the boyfriend in response, the OFCS review found.
An OCFS review of the 2014 murder of 8-year-old Jacob Noe in Buffalo found CPS officials conducted insufficient interviews with his mother, who later stabbed the boy to death, as well as Jacob himself, despite requirements to speak to both.
An Erie County CPS caseworker assigned to Noe’s case refused to cooperate with the OFCS inquiry and was fired. The review noted that supervisory
staff at Erie County CPS needed to provide better “supervision and guidance to casework staff” regarding their investigatory duties.
According to state regulations, a CPS supervisor must approve any decision that determines allegations are unfounded.
The OCFS reviews in the Valva and Paul cases are not yet available to the public, according to an agency records officer.
Ulster County CPS hung up when contacted for comment. Dutchess County CPS declined comment and Suffolk County did not respond to a phone call.
Freeston Paul said that over three years, he filed numerous complaints alleging that Cox was abusing his son with Bauer letting it happen.
Paul provided the Times Union with CPS records for a seven-month period ending in November 2019, but declined to provide the complete records.
After Paul’s June 2019 complaint, CPS followed up by interviewing the mother, but Bauer claimed she was “not in a relationship with Kevin Cox” and said that it had been “three years since Kevin Cox saw Davonte.” Both statements were apparently untrue.
Cox was “non-compliant” and never interviewed after the June 2019 complaint. The records state that Dutchess County CPS closed the investigation as “unfounded” with the approval of a supervisor Aug. 12, 2019, because Bauer “became uncooperative.”
After Paul filed the June 2019 complaint, Bauer disappeared from the Hudson Valley with Davonte. The mother and son only publicly resurfaced eight months later, when Bauer called 911 on Feb. 9. Troy police say Davonte died of hypothermia that was caused by Cox exposing him to freezing temperatures for a prolonged period.
It’s unclear what caseworkers in Ulster County did to try to interview Cox in response to prior complaints from Paul, including after a then-4-year-old Davonte told CPS that Cox was pouring water on him.
Due to a 60-day limit to investigate abuse claims, CPS closed the complaints about Davonte as unfounded. Eventually, the boy became reluctant to tell his father or CPS officials what was happening, Paul said.
Freeston Paul says that in 2016, he shared with CPS in Ulster County a news article detailing
Cox’s arrest in 2011 on domestic abuse charges, which contributed to
Cox serving a third term in prison before he was released and began dating Bauer.
When Ulster County CPS investigators approached Bauer about the allegations called in by Paul, the mother would deny them — at times also claiming that her boyfriend Cox did not exist, Paul said. Those alleged denials were offered up despite the fact that Cox’s name was tattooed on Bauer’s neck. CPS officials were aware of that, said Paul, who also showed the CPS officials evidence in 2017 of text messages between himself and Cox.
When Bauer became pregnant with Cox’s child about three years ago, Paul said, it became more difficult for Bauer to deny any relationship, but she began to assert that the relationship was over.
Former Albany Family Court Judge Dennis Duggan said that the same standards of thoroughness should apply to a
CPS inquiry as a criminal investigation.
“It just sort of sounds like with the press of business, they just accepted (Bauer’s explanations) and went on to their next case without going further,” Duggan said.
When CPS conducts an investigation, it is also required to conduct a home visit, including faceto-face interviews with the subjects before closing an investigation as unfounded, according to the CPS guidebook.
When Ulster County CPS officials would meet with Bauer, Paul said, it would almost always be in a park or another location rather than at her residence.
“They never demanded it,” Paul said. “She would just meet them at whatever time she wanted to meet them, at whatever location. And that would be it.”
Paul believes that Ulster County CPS may have interviewed Bauer once at her father’s home, and
Dutchess County CPS interviewed Bauer at an address in that county after the father’s June 2019 complaint.
Bauer also had a series of shifting addresses that she gave to court officials. Paul told Ulster County CPS repeatedly that Bauer was actually living with Davonte at Cox’s apartment in Ballston Spa, where Cox lived until about two years ago. Yet there is no indication that CPS officials tried to arrange a home visit to Cox’s residence, which Paul believes made it easy for him to avoid being interviewed.
In the years preceding the death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva on Long Island, CPS received repeated complaints, possibly from staff at the Valva boys’ school, East Moriches Elementary. During the time period of the reports, the three Valva boys were solely under their father’s care.
On Jan. 16, 2019, CPS received a complaint stating that Thomas had a “swollen black eye” that hadn’t been present the prior two days, and there were “conflicting with contradictory” explanations for the injury and the timeframe for those were “off.”
The CPS records, under law, don’t say who reported that injury or filed other complaints, but the notes from the investigation indicate the “school” had expressed concerns.
A Suffolk County CPS caseworker, Melissa Estrada, initially looked into the complaint. Michael Valva responded that the injury was sustained at school during recess, according to CPS notes. By then, Michael Valva had a documented history of using excessive corporal punishment, the CPS notes stated, citing a prior investigation.
The investigation would continue, according to CPS notes, but there was no “immediate or impending danger of serious harm” and no intervention was necessary. The investigation into the complaint was closed two months later, on March 20, 2019, as “Unfounded — no services required,” for reasons not clear in the records obtained by the Times Union.
A second complaint, more than a month after the first, on Feb. 27, 2019, stated that Thomas’ 9-year-old older brother, Anthony, was coming to school “with his clothes
and backpack soaked in urine.” Anthony was “staying in the garage and is not allowed in his room due to him urinating in his bed.”
A day later, the investigation was closed for supposedly being a “duplicate” to the then-ongoing CPS inquiry into the black eye sustained by Thomas.
Yet, according to the official manual for CPS workers, an investigation is only supposed to be closed as a “duplicate” if a complaint contains
“no new information that would add a subject, child or allegation to the previous report.”
Before being closed as
It just sort of sounds like with the press of business, they just accepted (Bauer’s explanations) and went on to their next case without going further.”
— Former Albany Family Court Judge Dennis Duggan
a duplicate, the complaint also must contain the “same or similar account of an incident(s) as an earlier registered report that is still open and undergoing an investigation.”
While Michael Valva was interviewed by CPS workers about Thomas’ black eye within seven days of the original Jan. 17 complaint, there’s no indication in the records that Valva was re-interviewed about the new allegation a month later that Anthony was coming to school soaked in urine. Both complaints were handled by Estrada.
On March 12, 2019, CPS received a complaint that Anthony Valva, who like Thomas was a special-education student, was having behavioral outbursts at school. The outbursts were allegedly encouraged by his father and Pollina because they wanted him instead placed in a “residential education setting.”
During a preliminary investigation over the next week, Estrada’s notes stated that Pollina did not allow her daughters to be interviewed by CPS and that Michael Valva and Pollina felt they were being “harassed by the school.” The investigation into the complaint was closed as unfounded after two months.
During the week after the first complaint, two more complaints were closed as being a “duplicate” of the March 12 complaint, though they contained distinct allegations.
A complaint called in March 13 said the father and his girlfriend did not adequately feed Anthony, who had lost a “large, unspecified amount of weight.” The complaint stated that as punishment, the father forced “Anthony to stay on a mattress in the garage,” which was not heated.
Anthony had come to school soaked in urine after staying in the garage and “was shaking from being wet in the very cold weather.” Pollina and the father were aware, and failed to ensure that Anthony was in clean, dry clothing, the complaint stated.
The complaint was immediately closed as a duplicate of the report about Anthony was acting inappropriately in school.
A March 18 complaint alleged that Michael Valva and Pollina were failing to adequately feed Anthony and Thomas who were “frequently hungry, beg for food, and eat food out of the garbage.” As a form of punishment, the complaint alleged, “the step-parent and father force Anthony to stay in the garage for excessive periods of time.”
Again, the complaint was immediately closed as a “duplicate” of the March 12 complaint that Anthony was acting out in school.
It’s not clear from the CPS notes whether Estrada tried to interview Valva, Pollina or others about the information in the two complaints from that March.
At a July 2019 appearance in state Supreme Court in Nassau County, which was responsible for deciding the Valvas’ divorce and custody case, the boys’ mother, Justyna Zubko-valva, raised the issue of the duplicate reports.
“As I told your honor, the Suffolk County CPS is protecting plaintiff,” she said. “They’re closing the reports as duplicative the next day. There’s no investigation. The investigation should take 60 days. I can show you the list.”
“Ms . Valva, the only thing that I can do if I receive the complaint is refer it to Suffolk CPS,” replied state Supreme Court Judge Joseph Lorintz. “I have no power to do any other investigation.”
Similar issues have been flagged before in the state’s reviews of child deaths. A report reviewing the death of Eain Clayton Brooks, who was beaten to death in 2013 by his mother’s boyfriend in Buffalo, found at least five complaints were improperly consolidated into other complaints by Erie County CPS.
“Minimal contacts were made on those subsequent investigations” and “very little information was gathered that was incorporated into the assessments,” the OCFS review stated. “The allegations on the subsequent reports were not fully explored or addressed.”