Bronx daycare owner pleads guilty to drug conspiracy a year after child's death

The woman who ran a Bronx daycare where a toddler died of fentanyl poisoning has pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy, according to prosecutors, in a case that continues to roil local parents more than a year later offset.

Grei Mendez, whose husband Felix Herrera Garcia already pleaded guilty, could face decades in prison after 22-month-old Nicholas Dominici died in her care and three other children were hospitalized due to fentanyl exposure. Prosecutors said Mendez, 36, her husband and other conspirators ran a fentanyl distribution operation out of their home in the Bronx, where Mendez also ran a day care center.

“Mendez's reprehensible conduct resulted in the unnecessary and tragic death of one child and the poisoning of three others,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, whose office prosecuted the case. “This case has demonstrated from the beginning the senseless collateral damage caused by the fentanyl epidemic and should remind us all that the demand for illegal narcotics so often endangers innocent bystanders while drug traffickers recklessly pursue profit.”

After Dominici's death in September 2023, investigators discovered large quantities of fentanyl hidden around the daycare center in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx – including under the floor where children napped. Officers later discovered the children had ingested a small amount of the deadly drug. Four children were taken to hospital, but Dominici could not be revived.

Court documents described how Herrera Garcia, along with other conspirators, used the same bowls, pans and sponges in their kitchen to package large quantities of fentanyl as they did to prepare food for the children.

The documents also describe previous incidents in which Herrera Garcia and other members of his family were affected by the powerful drugs they sold. In October 2022, Herrera Garcia's own brother apparently died of fentanyl poisoning while packaging drugs in another apartment in the Bronx. The documents state that Herrera Garcia simply combined his brother's supplies with those at the daycare and moved on.

Mendez's trial was scheduled to begin next month. She faces more than 40 years in prison.