New York, Sep 19 (EFE).- Federal authorities have filed charges this Tuesday against the owner of a daycare in New York where a one-year-old child died, allegedly intoxicated by fentanyl in an incident in which three others also suffered a overdose.
Grei Méndez, 36, and the man to whom she rented a bedroom in the apartment where the daycare operated in the Bronx, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, are under arrest accused by local authorities of murder, manslaughter and assault, charges of those who pleaded not guilty.
This Tuesday, the federal prosecutor’s office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan also charged them with possession of narcotics with intent to distribute resulting in death and one count of conspiracy.
“This case is different. We accuse these people of poisoning four babies and killing one of them because they were running a drug operation out of a daycare. A daycare: a place where children should be safe, not surrounded by a drug that can kill them in an instant,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
The Police are still searching for Méndez’s husband to question him after he was seen on video leaving the daycare center – which opened last January – with two full shopping bags on the day of the incident, last Friday.
The Police and firefighters went to the scene after receiving a call from Méndez that the children were not waking up.
According to the federal prosecutor’s indictment, before calling the emergency services, Méndez made three calls, two of them to her husband, whom she called again after alerting about the children, local media report.
Authorities found in the apartment a kilogram of fentanyl wrapped in a package that was on the children’s play mats, weighing equipment and paraphernalia used to package drugs.
Although the city coroner has not released the results of the autopsy of the child, Nicholas Dominici, the Police have indicated that medical tests revealed that the three intoxicated minors – two two-year-old boys and an 8-month-old girl – had fentanyl. in his body, notes The New York Times.
Méndez’s lawyer, Andrés Aranda, has said that she was unaware that her husband’s cousin to whom she rented a room stored drugs in the nursery.
“Fentanyl is the most urgent threat in our nation,” said Agent Frank Tarrentino, in charge of the DEA in New York, at the press conference in which the accusations against Méndez and Acevedo Brito were announced this Tuesday.
The federal prosecutor’s office is scheduled to convene a grand jury this Thursday to evaluate the evidence in this case. EFE
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2023-09-19 21:16:00
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