NEW YORK (AP) – A woman who owns a New York City daycare center where a baby died after taking fentanyl is sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges.
37-year-old Grey Mendes dropped her head on her head in agony as Judge Jed S. Lakov announced the sentence that Mendes’ family and his 22-month-old child, Nicholas Feliz Dominich, caused sobs between his mother, who died in September 2023.
Rakov had given it before Same sentence for Mendes’ husbandFelix Herrera Garcia, after he pleaded guilty to drug charges and caused death-related physical harm. The couple each faced mandatory duties of more than 20 years in prison and the maximum lifespan of their crimes.
Mendes had pleaded guilty to a drug charge that included a conspiracy to distribute deathly drugs.
Before the sentence was imposed, she apologised to the family of children who attended Divinoninho Daycare for leaving the Bronx apartment where the couple had stored and packaged drugs.
“I want you to know everything that was an accident,” she said through an interpreter. “I’m very sorry. I hope that one day I may be forgiven.”
When the poisoning broke out on September 15, 2023, Ferris Dominich was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died. Three other children Medic was exposed to fentanyl at day care after administering the overdose drug Narcan.
Police found fentanyl bricks stored on playmats for the child. Trap door in the playground.
Ferris Dominic’s parents both spoke in the verdict. The mother of the child said that Mendes and his father could not allow them to explain the permanent pain, saying, “We are not alive, but we are not alive.”
Rakov cited the feelings he felt when his brother was “killed in cold blood,” but added, “the glory of the law is not to ignore emotions, but to put them from a broader perspective.”
He said Mendes chose to place the welfare of her children and her husband on the welfare of her family and their children who have become clients of her daycare business.
In the presence brief, the defense attorney presented evidence that Mendes had hurt herself as a child. Prosecutors urged a long sentence, saying they ignored “clear warning signs” that the baby was seriously ill and did not take steps to call for life-saving medical intervention.
“And after the tragedy struck, she lied to law enforcement and destroyed the evidence to protect herself and her co-conspirators from negligence in the death of one baby and the addiction of three other people,” they wrote.
In the release, American lawyer Matthew Podolski said Mendes “had been harming the 8-month-old baby in a room where more than 11 kilograms of fentanyl were hidden beneath his feet and causing harm when he played or ate.”
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