Grei Mendez, the operator of a New York City daycare center, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges in connection with the fentanyl poisoning death of a toddler. The tragedy occurred at Mendez's daycare center in the Bronx, sparking widespread concern and outrage.
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03-04, 2025As Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence, the 37-year-old Mendez buried her head in her arms in anguish. Mendez's family and the mother of 22-month-old victim Nicholas Feliz-Dominici were both grief-stricken. Previously, Rakoff had sentenced Mendez's husband, Felix Herrera-Garcia, to the same prison term after he admitted to drug charges and causing physical harm in connection with the death.
Mendez was convicted of drug offenses, including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death. Before the sentencing, she apologized to the families of the children who had attended her Divino Niño daycare center, located in the Bronx apartment where the couple stored and packaged drugs. Through a translator, she stated, "I want everyone to know that it was an accident. I am very sorry and hope that one day I can be forgiven."
Following the poisoning incident on September 15, 2023, Feliz-Dominici was rushed to a nearby hospital but unfortunately passed away. Three other children at the daycare center who were exposed to fentanyl survived after medical personnel administered the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Police found a kilogram of fentanyl on a play mat used by the children, as well as equipment commonly used for packaging drugs, and fentanyl packaging was discovered under a trap door in the play area.
Both of Feliz-Dominici's parents spoke at the sentencing hearing. The child's mother stated that she could not forgive Mendez, while the father described the ongoing pain, saying, "We are alive, but we are not really alive." Judge Rakoff referenced his own feelings when his brother was "murdered in cold blood," but he added that "the glory of the law is not to ignore emotion, but to put emotion in a broader perspective." He stated that Mendez chose to put the welfare of her own child and husband above the welfare of the families and children who were clients of her daycare center.
In a pre-sentencing brief, defense attorneys testified that Mendez had also suffered trauma during her childhood. Prosecutors urged a lengthy prison sentence, stating that she disregarded "obvious warning signs" that the infants were seriously ill and failed to take any action to seek life-saving medical intervention. "After the tragedy, she lied to law enforcement and destroyed evidence to protect herself and her co-conspirators from responsibility for the death of one infant and the poisoning of three others," they wrote. Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Modolski said in a statement that Mendez placed infants as young as eight months old "in harm’s way, as they slept, played and ate in a room containing over 11 kilograms of fentanyl."
