The mother of a 1-year-old boy who died from fentanyl poisoning at a Bronx day care that was also a drug den called it “every parent’s nightmare.” The boss of the drug mill was given 45 years in prison.
Zoila Dominici told a Manhattan court Wednesday, a week before Nicholas Feliz Dominici would have turned three, “I can tell you one thing for sure: to celebrate your child’s birthday in a cemetery is not an easy thing to do.” She said this with tears running down her face. Felix Herrera Garcia was being sentenced.
The drug dealer who pleaded guilty in June to all charges related to the boy’s death at Divino Niño Daycare in Kingsbridge also broke down in tears while speaking in court. He begged Dominici’s family to forgive him someday.
“I know that my apology today might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me,” he said, standing in front of the defense table in a tan jumpsuit that the jail gave him.
He also said, “I know this won’t be easy, but I ask if they can ever forgive me.” “What happened that day gives me bad dreams.”
The first sentence was given on Wednesday following the shocking death at the day care where Herrera Garcia and his partners kept 12 kilograms of drugs hidden in closets and trap doors under the mats where children played and took naps, according to the police.
In the incident on September 15, 2023, three other children were also poisoned. One of them was a 2-year-old boy who was rushed to the hospital and almost died before being saved by Narcan, an opioid overdose drug.
Herrera Garcia went to the scene after getting a call from his wife Grei Mendez, who ran the daycare and is also facing criminal charges. He stayed there for only two minutes before leaving the building with drug bags in his hands, as shown by photos.
Fed. Deputy Maggie Lynaugh said in court Wednesday, “He saves the drugs but not the babies while children are dying on the floor.”
Herrera Garcia also kept selling drugs even after his brother died in October 2022 from being exposed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin and very dangerous.
It was very clear that this terrible thing was going to happen, but the defendant chose to ignore all of them, the feds said in a court document last week.
After Nicholas’ death, Herrera Garcia left the country but was later caught in Mexico by the police.
Herrera Garcia insisted through a Spanish interpreter on Wednesday that he had tried to “help” the kids who were dying and that he had only left the scene when he heard the sounds of an ambulance coming.
On his guilty plea charges, which included conspiracy to sell drugs with the intent to kill, the prosecutors wanted him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Still, Judge Jed Rakoff gave the life sentence because he thought the death did not meet the standards of planned murder.
What the judge said, though, was much worse than “everyday manslaughter.” He lamented the tragedy of “pitiful, innocent babes that were poisoned and, in one case, killed.”
Mendez has pleaded not guilty and her case is still being heard. Another person who pleaded not guilty was Carlisto Acevedo Brito, who is cousin to Herrera Garcia.
A fourth defendant, Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, who is 38 years old, has also pleaded guilty to his part in the drug plot and is now waiting to be sentenced.
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