A woman who operated a New York City day care center in the Bronx where a 22-month-old boy died of fentanyl poisoning in September 2023 pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal drug charges, officials said.
Grei Mendez entered the guilty plea in Manhattan to charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in death, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Mendez faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison.
Mendez’s plea comes more than a year after four children under the age of three were hospitalized for suspected fentanyl poisoning after exposure to the drug at the Divino Niño day care center in the Bronx. Nicholas Dominici, a 22-month-old boy, died in hospital while the remaining three children recovered after hospital treatment.
In late September 2023, Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, was arrested in Mexico before being returned to the United States for prosecution. Earlier this month, Garcia was sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty in June to trafficking fentanyl out of the day care center, resulting in the death of one child and the poisoning of three others.
An associate, Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, also known as “El Gallo,” pleaded guilty in May and was charged the next month for conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and serious bodily injury. Another associate, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, was also charged in connection with the case.
Prosecutors claim Mendez, Herrera Garcia, and a co-conspirator directly put the children under their care in harm’s way by running a fentanyl operation inside “the very space in which the children ate, slept, and played.”
Police executing a search warrant on the day care center, which Mendez ran out of a Bronx apartment, found large quantities of narcotics, including a kilogram of fentanyl stored on top of children’s playmats, according to court documents. In addition, investigators found three “kilo presses” designed to package narcotics in powder form into kilo-sized bricks.
Investigators also found other suspected drug paraphernalia in hidden trap doors located in the floor of the room in which the children played and slept. Photos shared by NYPD detectives at the time showed bags containing large quantities of fentanyl, other narcotics, and drug paraphernalia concealed under the flooring.
Prosecutors said in court filings that Mendez and Brito tried to cover up the drug operation after she called 911 realizing the children were unresponsive and suffering the effects of fentanyl exposure.
Prosecutors said Mendez called her husband twice before alerting emergency responders. Minutes before the paramedics arrived at the scene, Garcia was seen on surveillance footage leaving the day care through a back alley carrying two shopping bags, prosecutors added. Mendez is also accused of deleting some 21,526 messages between her and Herrera Garcia from an encrypted messaging application.
“Grei Mendez has just admitted she conspired to maintain and distribute large quantities of dangerously toxic fentanyl in a Bronx Daycare center, a place where parents expected their children would be protected and safe,” said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, in Tuesday’s statement.
“From the beginning, this case has shown the senseless collateral damage caused by the fentanyl epidemic, and should remind us all that the demand for illegal narcotics so often puts innocent bystanders at risk while drug traffickers ruthlessly pursue profits,” Williams said.