A lady who owned a New York Metropolis day care heart the place a toddler died after ingesting fentanyl has been sentenced to 45 years in jail after pleading responsible to federal drug costs.
Grei Mendez, 37, dropped her head into her crossed arms in anguish as Decide Jed S. Rakoff introduced the sentence that triggered sobs amongst Mendez’s household and the mom whose 22-month-old little one, Nicholas Feliz-Dominici, died in September 2023.
Rakoff had beforehand given the identical sentence to Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera-Garcia, after he pleaded responsible to drug costs and inflicting bodily hurt associated to the loss of life. The couple every confronted a compulsory minimal of 20 years in jail and a most of life for his or her crimes.
Mendez had pleaded responsible to drug costs together with conspiracy to distribute narcotics leading to loss of life.
Earlier than the sentence was imposed, she apologized to the households of kids who attended the Divino Niño day care that she operated out of a Bronx residence the place the couple saved and packaged narcotics.
“I do want all to know it was an accident,” she mentioned via an interpreter. “I am very sorry. I hope that someday I may be forgiven.”
When the poisoning occurred on Sept. 15, 2023, Feliz-Dominici was rushed to a close-by hospital, the place he died. Three different kids uncovered to the fentanyl on the day care survived after medics administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
Police discovered a brick of fentanyl saved on high of playmats for the kids, together with gear typically used to package deal medicine, in addition to packages of fentanyl beneath a entice door in a play space.
Each of Feliz-Dominici’s mother and father spoke on the sentencing, with the kid’s mom saying it was not doable to forgive Mendez and the daddy describing the lasting ache, saying: “We’re living, but we’re not alive.”
Rakoff cited the feelings he as soon as felt when his older brother “was murdered in cold blood,” however he added that the “glory of the law is not to ignore emotions but to put them in broader perspective.”
He mentioned Mendez had chosen to place the welfare of her personal kids and her husband above the welfare of the households and their kids that turned prospects of her day care enterprise.
In a presentence temporary, a protection lawyer submitted proof that Mendez had suffered trauma herself as a toddler. Prosecutors urged a prolonged sentence, saying she ignored “clear warning signs” that the infants have been changing into severely ailing and took no motion to name for lifesaving medical intervention.
“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 poisoning of three others,” they wrote.
In a launch, Performing U.S. Legal professional Matthew Podolsky mentioned Mendez put infants as younger as 8 months outdated “in harm’s way as they slept, played and ate in a room where over 11 kilograms of fentanyl was hidden underneath their feet.”
Author : newyork-news
Publish date : 2025-03-04 03:40:54
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