Bronx day care owner sentenced to 45 years in prison in child's fentanyl death

Grei Mendez – the woman who owned and ran a Bronx day care where a 1-year-old boy died of fentanyl poisoning in a 2023 case that drew national attention – was sentenced to 45 years in prison Monday in a tearful proceeding in Manhattan federal court.

“She was in the best position to save these children, and she chose, for perhaps understandable reasons but not defensible reasons, to put her life and her husband’s life and her children’s lives first,” said Judge Jed Rakoff, before handing Mendez the same sentence her husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, had gotten for his role in the drug operation that killed 22-month-old Nicholas Dominici and shocked the city.

Mendez was one of four defendants arrested in connection with the September 2023 incident, which rattled Kingsbridge, the neighborhood where her Divino Niño day care center had operated out of an apartment building. She pleaded guilty last fall to federal drug conspiracy charges, following the guilty pleas of her husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, and his co-conspirator Renny Antonio Parra Paredes in the spring.

The fourth defendant, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, pleaded not guilty to his charges.

On Monday, the judge weighed final arguments from Mendez’s lawyer and from prosecutors, as well as emotional statements from Mendez herself and from both of Dominici’s parents.

Federal prosecutors alleged that she was a key part of the narcotics operation, who had helped stamp glassines and pack them into boxes, and who had tried to advise her husband’s business decisions.

When Nicholas Dominici and two other toddlers did not wake up from their naps at the day care on Sept. 15, 2023, prosecutors said Mendez tried to cover up what was happening, didn’t use the Narcan she had available, and didn’t tell first responders critical information that could have saved Dominici.

Mendez’s lawyer Paul King asked the judge for leniency by bringing up her difficult upbringing – a history of growing up in poverty, of sexual abuse and coercive relationships that allowed Herrera to “put her in a position to sell drugs.”

Addressing the packed courtroom, Mendez read a statement in Spanish through tears. “It was an accident. Believe me, this has left me traumatized. I will never forget that moment,” she said. “My only mistake was in trusting people who were closest to me. I hope that some day I can be forgiven.”

Mendez hung her head when Dominici’s parents took the stand.

“Since that day, my life came to a stop and will never be the same,” Dominici’s mother, Zoila Dominici, said in Spanish.

Prosecutors recounted how Mendez was slow to call 911 when she noticed Dominici and the other children acting strangely on Sept. 15.

Officials determined the children had somehow ingested some of the fentanyl that was hidden throughout the day care – including a kilogram under a trap door in the floor, directly beneath where the children were sleeping.

The children were rushed to the hospital, and Dominici could not be revived. A fourth child who had been picked up earlier that day was also brought to a hospital because he was acting lethargic and unresponsive, officials said at the time.

Court documents later revealed that Mendez, her husband and their alleged co-conspirators used the same bowls, pans and sponges in their kitchen to package the drugs and prepare food for the children in their care. Prosecutors alleged that the fentanyl the group was handling made them sick on several occasions, but they continued the operation.

Although the day care had passed several inspections before the incident, investigators eventually discovered a total of 11 kilograms of fentanyl and heroin in secret compartments or traps underneath the floor tiles in the playroom where the children played, ate and slept every day, according to officials.

A year after Dominici’s death, day care providers in Kingsbridge said inspections had become more frequent and stringent, and elected leaders had introduced a spate of bills to further regulate the facilities. Experts said many parts of the Bronx were grappling with the impacts of fentanyl trafficked via multiple highways.

Neighbors around Morris Avenue told Gothamist they wondered how Mendez could have participated in an activity that put children, including her own toddler, who sometimes attended the day care, at such high risk.

Mendez apologized to her family in court on Monday, and they cried throughout the proceeding. After she was sentenced and led away, several of them broke down outside the courtroom, including one daughter who yelled over and over in Spanish, “I want to go with my Mom.”

Her lawyer declined to comment.

Dominici’s parents cried, too.

“Nicholas won’t come back with 45 years, nor with her excuses for us to forgive her… but in a way, there’s been justice,” Zoila Dominici told reporters outside the courthouse. “My heart is still broken with her sentence. I don’t forgive her. God can forgive her.”