The devastated mother of a 1-year-old baby who died from fentanyl exposure at a Bronx daycare said Monday she’d never forgive the owner – who didn’t use anti-overdose medication as the boy lay dying.
Divino Niño Daycare owner Grei Mendez trembled in Manhattan court as she was confronted by Zoila Dominici, who said Mendez deserved no mercy before she was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the tragedy.
“It is not possible to forgive something like this,” Dominici told Mendez, 37, of the September 2023 death of little Nicholas Feliz Dominici at the daycare, which was stocked with lifesaving Narcan.
“Forty-five years is not enough,” Dominici said. She stood at a lectern inside the courtroom and stared at Mendez, who sat facing straight ahead at the defense table, avoiding eye contact with the heartbroken mom.
“I do not forgive you,” Dominici railed to Mendez, who appeared overcome with emotion, her arms and hands noticeably shaking throughout the hour-long hearing. “Let God forgive you.”
“It is not possible to forgive something like this,” Zoila Dominici told a trembling Grei Mendez, 37, in Manhattan federal court of the tragic September 2023 death of Nicholas Feliz Dominici. Steven Hirsch
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District had asked Judge Jed Rakoff to sentence Mendez to at least the 45 years her admitted drug mill boss husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, received in October.
Nicholas had ingested fentanyl that Mendez and her husband have admitted to secretly storing underneath floor tiles where children rested and played. Three other kids, all younger than 3-years old, were hospitalized after being poisoned as well, authorities say.
Mendez didn’t try to revive the children using Narcan despite having a kit in the facility’s medicine cabinet, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District revealed in a pre-sentencing court filing.
“She had the key to helping these children and she didn’t use it,” federal prosecutor Maggie Lynaugh said in court Monday.
When first responders arrived, Mendez didn’t tell them that the kids might be suffering from an opioid overdose — as little Nicholas lay lifeless on the ground with blue lips and no pulse, court papers show.
Mendez pleaded guilty to all counts she faced, including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death, in October on the eve of her trial.
Prosecutors had asked Judge Jed Rakoff to sentence Mendez to at least the 45 years her admitted drug mill boss husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, received in October.
But the feds said Mendez deserved life in prison as the person most responsible for the toddler’s death.
Mendez lied repeatedly to federal agents after her arrest, claiming to know nothing about the 11 kilograms of narcotics hidden underneath the children, despite evidence emerging later that she had packed drugs at the same facility, court papers show.
She even brazenly claimed to investigators that she would not be “stupid” enough to store narcotics near the children’s playroom, despite knowing that she had done just that, the papers said. At one point, she suggested that the kids had suffered from a gas leak or carbon monoxide poisoning.
“I do not forgive you,” Dominici added to Mendez, who appeared overcome with emotion, her arms and hands noticeably shaking, throughout the hour-long hearing. “Let God forgive you.” Yeissy Dominici/Facebook
“Do you think I don’t know the danger there?” she told a federal agent, court papers show.
“I know how dangerous that is,” she added. “I’m not stupid. I watch the news. I know that stuff kills.”
At Monday’s sentencing, Dominici burst into tears in the courtroom gallery as prosecutors recounted her son’s final moments. Her husband, Otoniel Feliz, then put his arm around her to comfort her.
When asked to address the court himself, Feliz said of Mendez, “She only let my son die. She didn’t do anything.
“We didn’t just lose Nicholas. We lost our life,” Feliz added.
Mendez, speaking softly and using a Spanish interpreter, told the court that “it was never my intention” for the children to be poisoned.
“I do want all to know it was an accident,” she said, claiming to “know the suffering” that Nicholas’s parents are feeling as a mother herself who has been locked up and away from four children of her own.
“Believe me, this has left me traumatized,” Mendez said. “I cannot erase this from my mind.”
Judge Rakoff said that he was giving Mendez the same sentence that her husband received because they both shared roughly the same amount of culpability for the tragic episode.
But he noted, addressing Mendez, that she, “for perhaps understandable but not defensivable reasons,” chose to prioritize her own fear of facing prosecution “above the opportunity to save a life.”
When the sentencing was announced, Mendez’s head sunk into the table, into her arms folded in front of her at the table.
Loud sobs could then be heard in the courtroom: from Mendez’s relatives, and from Dominici.
