The drug-dealing operator of a Bronx daycare where a toddler died of exposure to fentanyl and three other children overdosed was sentenced to 45 years in prison on Monday.
The term was handed down in Manhattan Federal Court to Grei Mendez, 37, who pleaded guilty to a slate of narcotics offenses in October, including drug distribution and possession, six days before she was set to go on trial for her participation in the drug dealing daycare where 22-month-old Nicholas Feliz-Dominici was killed, a 25-month-old was seriously injured, and two children aged eight months and 25 months were poisoned.
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office had requested Mendez serve a life term, telling the court ahead of sentencing that not only was she “deeply involved” in the scheme to traffic drugs out of El Divino Niño daycare on Morris Ave. but bore primary responsibility for the children’s care. The feds said they considered her “most responsible for the profound and irreparable harm” caused to the tots on Sept. 15, 2023.
“Simply put, without Mendez this would have been just another drug conspiracy moving large quantities of illegal narcotics. But with Mendez, this was a conspiracy so dangerous that it would almost inevitably result in a loss of life,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Maggie Lynaugh wrote.
Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in October for peddling drugs out of the daycare from October 2022 through the child’s death. Two others involved in the drug ring, Renny Parra Paredes and Jean Carlo Amparo Herrera, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the case and received 30 months and 10 years, respectively.
The children overdosed after Mendez fed them and put them down for a nap after morning activities, according to court records. One of the tots was picked up by their mother while others continued to sleep. When the daycare operator discovered the unresponsive children, she called her husband first and then 911, according to court records.
Herrera Garcia arrived before medics, running into the facility quickly to pick up two duffel bags full of narcotics while the kids lay unconscious on the floor. He then fled to Mexico, where local authorities expelled him, and was ultimately extradited to New York.
“She put babies as young as eight months old directly in harm’s way as they slept, played, and ate in a room where over 11 kilograms of fentanyl was hidden underneath their feet, leading to the death of one child and the poisoning of others,” Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said in a statement Monday.
Prosecutors said Mendez and her conspirators knowingly put the kids in her care at grave risk by using the same kitchen utensils to prepare meals as they did to package drugs. So dangerous were the narcotics that those packaging the fentanyl themselves had suffered “repeated bouts of vomiting” from exposure.
In her interviews with police following the overdoses, she said, “I’m not stupid, I watch the news; I know that stuff kills” and deleted tens of thousands of text and voice messages from her phone, according to the government’s sentencing submission.
Despite knowing of the dangers, Mendez, a native of the Dominican Republic, and her conspirators stored fentanyl and press machines beneath trapdoors under play mats and cribs, according to court records.
In her sentencing submission, Mendez’s lawyers said she was a mother of four who’s taken primary responsibility for her kids who would be lost without her. They said she had a traumatic and high-stress childhood living in poverty, in which she witnessed domestic violence at home. They said she had also experienced sexual and physical abuse.
“During the clinical interviews, Ms. Mendez expressed feelings of shame and disappointment in herself and her actions,” Yaquelin Castillo, a forensic social worker, wrote in a filing included in Mendez’s sentencing submission.
“Ms. Mendez struggles with low self-esteem, high levels of anxiety, and severe depression. She has isolated herself and feels worthless. It is crucial for her to have access to community resources that will enable her to address unresolved emotional challenges and provide opportunities to build a solid foundation of healthy coping, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.”
In requesting a steep term, the feds said the babies at Mendez’s daycare were “simply the most identifiable” of her victims, noting all of the people she and her conspirators put in harm’s way by dealing the deadly drugs.
“[She] took no action to provide or call upon what could have been life-saving medical intervention to the babies despite clear warning signs that they were becoming seriously ill,” Lynaugh wrote. “And after tragedy struck, she lied to law enforcement and destroyed evidence in an effort to protect herself and her co-conspirators from their culpability in the death of one baby and the poisoning of three others.”
