Bronx man who dealt fentanyl out of wife’s daycare center that led to toddler death sentenced to 45 years

A Bronx cause trader whose usage of his wife’s daycare halfway as a concealed stash location for fentanyl resulted successful the decease of a 22-month-old lad and astir killed 3 different tiny children volition service 45 years successful situation for the September 2023 incidental that horrified the city, a Manhattan justice ruled Wednesday.

The steep word was handed down to Felix Herrera Garcia more than a twelvemonth aft the decease of Nicholas Feliz-Dominici astatine Divino Niño Daycare successful Kingsbridge.

Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff said Herrera Garcia’s actions had not lone posed a “severe risk” to “the pitiful guiltless babes that were poisoned and, successful 1 case, killed,” but besides radical to whom helium peddled the highly-potent cause the authorities says is simply a superior operator of overdose deaths crossed the U.S.

Sam Costanza for New York Daily News

Police are seen astatine the Divino Nino Day Care located astatine 2707 Morris Ave. connected Friday, September 15, 2023 (Sam Costanza for New York Daily News)

Herrera Garcia, 35, dealt retired of the daycare cause mill from astatine slightest October 2022 done the child’s death, according to tribunal records. He pleaded blameworthy successful June to possession with intent to administer deadly narcotics, resulting successful decease and a related conspiracy charge.

In tribunal papers filed up of the sentencing, national prosecutors described however Herrera Garcia and his alleged accomplices — his woman Grei Mendez, relative Carlisto Acevedo Brito, Renny Parra Paredes, and Jean Carlo Amparo Herrera — enactment the children astatine sedate hazard by utilizing the aforesaid room utensils utilized to hole nutrient astatine the daycare arsenic they did to bundle drugs.

They knew that the drugs posed a terrible hazard to the kids oregon ignored it, the feds said, having themselves suffered “repeated bouts of vomiting from the cause exposure” portion handling the unsafe substances.

The disturbing incidental occurred aft Mendez fed the kids and enactment them down for a nap aft greeting activities. One was picked up by their mother, and the others stayed asleep. When Mendez checked connected them hours later, they were unresponsive, and she called her hubby and past 911, prosecutors wrote.

Herrera Garcia arrived earlier the ambulances, moving into the daycare done the beforehand doorway and leaving 2 minutes aboriginal carrying 2 duffel bags afloat of narcotics. All the while, the kids laic unconscious connected the floor.

Herrera Garcia is seen leaving the time attraction carrying 2 duffel bags afloat of narcotics. (Court Evidence)

Medics astatine Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood “frantically” tried to prevention babe Nicholas.

“The exigency country doc who treated (Nicholas) and past informed (Nicholas’s) parents of his decease has described that acquisition arsenic 1 of the worst of her life,” tribunal documents describe.

The different children — a 2-year-old who suffered terrible bodily wounded and a toddler and an 8-month-old who were poisoned — were saved aft medics administered Narcan to them.

Agents who searched the daycare halfway discovered a kilogram-sized ceramic of fentanyl and 2 property machines. Days later, beneath playmats and cribs wherever kids played, ate, and napped, 2 trap doors were discovered that hid much than 11 grams of fentanyl and heroin.

Agents discovered trap doors that hid much than 11 grams of fentanyl and heroin. (Court Evidence)

Herrera Garcia fled to a friend’s spot successful the Bronx and past embarked connected a two-week travel crossed the U.S. to Mexico, wherever section authorities expelled him. He was arrested successful California and past extradited to New York.

Prosecutors had requested a beingness term, arguing successful tribunal papers that he’d caused “tremendous harm and pain,” trafficking the deadly cause “despite knowing that it had killed his ain member and believing it had sent his ain young lad to the hospital.”

In an affectional connection to the court, translated done a Spanish interpreter, Herrera Garcia apologized to the victims and their families.

“I person nightmares astir what happened that day,” helium said, claiming that helium stayed astatine the country until helium heard sirens. “I was acrophobic for the children.”

Herrera Garcia is the archetypal idiosyncratic charged successful the lawsuit to look justice. His woman and relative person pleaded not guilty. Parra Paredes and Amparo Herrera have pleaded blameworthy to related charges and awaiting sentencing.

“This lawsuit demonstrates the deadly scope and scope of the fentanyl epidemic, and the tragic collateral harm it inflicts connected American lives,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said successful a statement.