Two suspects have been arrested and charged with the murder of a 1-year-old boy who died from exposure to opioids in a Bronx home-based daycare, which recently had passed inspection earlier this month. The 1-year-old, Nicholas Dominici was sadly pronounced dead on arrival at the Montefiore Medical Center.
Three other children, ages ranging from 8 months – 2 years old were also hospitalized after showing signs of overdose of the suspected opioid, but were revived after receiving Narcan, an opioid reversing drug. The 8-month girl and one 2-year-old boy are in stable condition, while the other 2-year-old boy was in critical condition. Owner of the Divino Niño home daycare, Grei Mendez, 36, was arrested Saturday evening along with Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41 on multiple charges including murder, manslaughter, assault and criminal possession of a controlled substance and narcotic drugs, including Fentanyl, and endangering the welfare of a child. There is questions and allegations that the daycare could have been a front for a major drug supplier.
NYPD officials found large quantities of the drugs and two “kilo presses,” an item frequently used by drug dealers when packaging large amounts of drugs, in a hallway closet, and a third press in Brito’s bedroom, who was renting a room in the daycare and working with Mendez from July through September. Brito is the cousin of Mendez’s husband. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent wrote in a complaint, “Despite the daily presence of children, including infants, the defendants maintained large quantities of fentanyl, including a kilogram of fentanyl stored on top of children’s play mats.” Along with fentanyl, the DEA believes the daycare was also pushing millions in the wholesale of cocaine and heroin.
Mendez’s lawyer said she had no idea drugs were in the building and was the one that called 911 when she noticed something was wrong with the children involved. Before calling 911 at 2:40 p.m. last Friday, Mendez first made three other calls: the first being to another daycare employee, and two to her husband.
Mendez called her husband several more times after the 911 call and minutes before emergency personnel arrived on the scene, Mendez’s husband can be seen empty handed on surveillance footage entering the daycare, then exiting through the back door two minutes later “carrying what appears to be two shopping bags weighted with contents.” Further searching of Mendez’s device revealed she had deleted over 21,000 messages between her and her husband from March 2021 – Friday, September 15, the day of the incident. Some of the deleted, encrypted messages are said to find that Mendez was informing her husband that authorities were questioning her about him and he should look for a lawyer. The complaint also said that Brito’s devices disclosed he had exchanged in numerous messages with others that “indicate his participation in narcotics trafficking.” Mayor Eric Adams said, “This crisis is real, and it is a real wake-up call for individuals who have opioids or fentanyl in their homes. The mere contact is deadly for an adult and it’s extremely deadly for a child.”
In a press conference, it was told that Mendez’s husband is still at large, according to Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Williams said, “This is something we’re going to run to ground. Those drugs came from somewhere. We’re going to make sure we get it all the way back to the source.”
By - FZ
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