Day care operator gets 45 years in prison for infant’s death from fentanyl

Grei Mendez, 37, operated Divino Niño Daycare out of a small apartment where four children were overcome by fentanyl intoxication, including Nicholas Dominici who died. (WABC via CNN Newsource)

The woman who ran a Bronx day care where a one-year-old died of fentanyl poisoning was sentenced Monday to 45 years in prison, the coda to a case that horrified New York City and underscored the scourge of the nation’s fentanyl epidemic.

Grei Mendez, 37, operated Divino Niño Daycare out of a small apartment where four children were overcome by fentanyl intoxication, including Nicholas Dominici who died.

The children were poisoned because Mendez, her husband and others chose to operate a large-scale fentanyl packaging and distribution facility inside the day care, prosecutors said. All of the defendants pleaded guilty.

“Not only was Mendez deeply involved in drug trafficking, she is the individual who bears primary responsibility for involving babies in the conspiracy’s activities,” prosecutors said in pushing for a stiff sentence. “Simply put, without Mendez this would have been just another drug conspiracy moving large quantities of illegal narcotics.”

On the morning of Sept. 15, 2023, between 8:25 and 8:45 a.m., all four children were dropped-off by their parents. All were healthy at the time of their arrival.

After morning activities, Mendez fed the children lunch and put three of them down for a nap. At 1:50 p.m., Mendez spoke with someone at the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, the community center that had referred the children to the day care, and said everything was fine, but that little Nicholas was breathing in a particular way.

An hour later, Nicholas and another child were unresponsive.

According to the indictment, Mendez placed a series of phone calls: first to the community center, then to her husband and only after speaking to them did she call 911.

Moments after the defendant called 911, but before emergency personnel arrived, the husband was seen on surveillance camera rushing through the front door and then exiting out the rear of the building, carrying two weighted bags.

Investigators found fentanyl stored in a trapdoor beneath a colorful mat on the day care floor.

Mendez had pulled her own two-year-old son from the day care after she worried he was exhibiting signs of fentanyl exposure. Mendez never reported the suspected exposure to police and did not allow the boy to return. However, she kept the day care open for other children.

“Grei Mendez operated a daycare out of a basement apartment in the Bronx in which large quantities of deadly fentanyl were mixed, packaged, and stored,” acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said. “She put babies as young as eight months old directly in harm’s way as they slept, played, and ate in a room where over 11 kilograms of fentanyl was hidden underneath their feet, leading to the death of one child and the poisoning of others.”

Podolsky said Monday’s sentencing sends the message that authorities will “work tirelessly” to bring to justice anyone who “uses children as a shield in the drug trade.”

Dominici’s mother Zoila Dominici reacted to the sentencing Monday night.

Fighting back tears, she said, “this is the worst nightmare any mother could face,” and that just hearing the word “fentanyl” on television now sends chills down her spine. But she also said she will try to move forward for the sake of her other children.