A New York City day care owner and her husband were sentenced Wednesday in the fentanyl poisoning death of a 22-month-old boy in their care.
A jury found Grei Mendez, 38, and Felix Herrera Garcia, 37, guilty of second-degree murder last year in the New York case, as well as assault, according to the Bronx district attorney’s office. Mendez, who owned Divino Niño day care center, and her husband, Garcia, were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
The couple are already serving a 45-year sentence after they pleaded guilty to federal drug charges in connection with the case. The state prison sentence Wednesday will run concurrent with the federal sentence.
In the state murder case, prosecutors told the court that large quantities of fentanyl were being processed at the day care center. The same kitchen tools that Mendez used to prepare the kids’ food was used to process the fentanyl, the state said.
The four children who fell sick in September 2023 were 22-month-old Nicholas Dominici; 2-year-old Abel Garcia; Abel’s 8-month-old sister, Kiara Garcia; and 2-year-old Jaziel Lino.
Nicholas died from the exposure, while the three other children survived. Abel went into respiratory arrest but was revived at a hospital. His sister and Jaziel were treated for acute opioid intoxication.
Mendez called her husband before she called 911 when she realized the children were sick, and Garcia removed the drugs before he fled the building with weighted plastic bags, prosecutors said. Garcia fled to Mexico following Nicholas’ death, where he was captured and extradited back to New York to face charges.
Authorities found a kilo of fentanyl in a closet and 12 more kilos of narcotics under a trapdoor in the children’s playroom.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark referred to the drugs’ being hidden in the room where the children played and slept when she spoke about the couple’s “greed” and “depravity.”
Otoniel Feliz holds a photo of his deceased infant son, Nicholas Feliz Dominici, at a news conference with Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark in 2023.Theodore Parisienne for NY Daily News via Getty Images
“These babies were shields to protect a narcotics operation,” Clark said in a statement Wednesday.
Mendez expressed remorse when she pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2024, saying they opened the day care center because she believed her husband was trying to help her. But she then realized it was a “perfect way to conceal his drug business, she said.
“This will haunt me for as long as I live,” she said at the time.