Three Defendants in Daycare Fentanyl Case to Appear in Court for Indictment

Three of the defendants in the daycare case where a 1-year-old boy died after being exposed to fentanyl and three others were poisoned and hospitalized by the same drug in mid-September will appear in court Wednesday afternoon for an indictment. announced the Bronx County Prosecutor’s Office.

So far the authorities have arrested four people involved in the case: the owner of the daycare, Grei Méndez, 36, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, who rented a room in the children’s center, Méndez’s husband, Félix Herrera who was arrested on September 26 on a bus heading to Sinaloa in Mexico and Antonio Parra Paredes, alias “El Gallo.”

The three who will be formally charged on Wednesday around 1:00 pm are believed to be Méndez, Brito and Paredes.

The formal accusation comes almost 10 days after the husband of the owner of the daycare center in The Bronx was captured in Mexico by state police of this country and DEA agents. Herrera was extradited to the United States, but it has not been announced if he will be in court on Wednesday.

On the other hand, Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, alias The rooster, was arrested on September 25, and charged with one count of first-degree conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death, announced the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams. Paredes would have supplied materials and drugs to those involved in trafficking in the daycare.

These arrests come almost a week after the prosecutor announced that the other two accused in the death of the minor on September 15 were facing federal charges.

Following the arrest, law enforcement officers searched the apartment where Paredes was staying and found shopping bags containing tools and instruments used to prepare and distribute narcotics, including strainers, duct tape, a grinder, plastic bags and scales. digital. Law enforcement officers also found what appear to be two clear bags filled with a grayish powder and a rectangular, brick-shaped package, both of which appear to contain narcotics.

Photo: Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York

Law enforcement officers also found glass envelopes bearing the same red stamp with the name “RED DAWN” as the glass envelopes found at the daycare and found the stamp itself bearing those words.

The arrest comes days after investigators returned to the daycare last Wednesday and found a secret door under the floor where the children slept. Here, police found more fentanyl, other narcotics and paraphernalia.

“We have evidence that shows it was more than just a daycare. It’s clear there was a drug operation going on there,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark.

What the accusation says

According to the prosecutor’s report, from at least July 2023 on or about that date until September 2023 on or around that date, Paredes and others, including Grei Méndez and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, conspired to distribute fentanyl, among those locations in the daycare center in the Bronx where the little ones were poisoned.

It was at this location that, despite the daily presence of children, including infants, Paredes and his accomplices maintained large quantities of narcotics, including a kilogram of fentanyl stored on top of the children’s play mats, and large quantities of suspected narcotics. in hidden compartments known as “traps” and that were located on the floor of the room where the children played and slept, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Additionally, authorities found narcotic packaging materials in the traps, such as glass envelopes used for retail drug distribution, which were stamped in red with the legend “RED DAWN.”

Due to the presence of this drug in the daycare on September 15, the four victims, all under 3 years old, the youngest an 8-month-old girl, ended up poisoned due to exposure to fentanyl, the prosecutor’s office said. Three of those children ended up in critical condition in the hospital and the fourth child, identified as one-year-old Nicholas Dominici, died.

Through tears, the mother recounted how she found her two young children unconscious at the Hispanic daycare where a baby died from an overdose. Ricardo Villarini brings us the exclusive.

Grei Méndez, a 36-year-old woman who operated the Divino Niño daycare inside a Bronx apartment, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, a 41-year-old man who rented a room inside the location, also face two federal charges: one of possession of narcotics with intent to distribute resulting in death and the second of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death. Both charges would carry a maximum sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

“This case is different, the defendants poisoned four children and one of them died,” said prosecutor Williams during the press conference. “They were operating a narcotics operation out of a daycare, a place where children should be safe, not around a drug that can kill them in an instant,” he added.

“The parents entrusted Grei Méndez with the care of their children. As alleged, instead of diligently safeguarding the well-being of those children, she and her accomplice directly put them in danger, running a narcotics operation and storing deadly fentanyl outside the same space in which the children ate, slept and played. . The disregard shown by Mendez and her accomplice for the lives of the children in her care is simply astonishing,” Williams added.

The criminal complaint published last Tuesday stated that Méndez had exchanged around 21,500 messages with an accomplice, whom authorities identified as her husband, between Friday and March 30, 2021.

All of those messages had been deleted some time after the baby’s death, according to the federal criminal complaint. While being questioned by police, authorities found that Mendez told her husband that they were asking questions about him and where she was. He ordered her to tell them he was working, according to court documents, and she told him to get a lawyer.

An examination of messages found on Brito’s phone, also from the same encrypted messaging service, also linked him to alleged narcotics trafficking, according to the criminal complaint. Brito denied having knowledge of the drug and the kilo press.

The federal charges are in addition to state murder charges faced by Méndez and Brito, who was identified by Méndez as her husband’s cousin. Méndez pleaded not guilty last Sunday to the charges; Brito had been waiting to be arraigned on the same charges.

An attorney for Méndez, Andrés Aranda, said his client lived above the Morris Avenue daycare and rented a room to Brito for $200 a month.

It is still unclear how the children could have been exposed to the drugs. The cause and manner of Dominici’s death are pending further study, according to the city medical examiner’s office.

“There is no news or tragedy more devastating than the loss of a child. Every New Yorker should be outraged by this senseless tragedy,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino.

Neither Méndez, 33, nor Brito, 41, appeared before a judge Wednesday. The two suspects remain in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center after being indicted last week on federal narcotics possession charges.

Ana Ledo with the details.

In addition, the defendants kept elements in the daycare center expressly built for the distribution of large quantities of narcotics, including three so-called “drug packaging presses,” which are designed for the recompression of powdered drugs commonly used by drug traffickers in “factories” or other places where narcotics are broken down, combined with fillers and portioned for sale.

About a kilogram of fentanyl, which was found inside a taped package containing several thousand dollars’ worth of the deadly drug, was inside a closet next to stacked mats on which children were napping, authorities said. Mendez has maintained that he had no knowledge of the presence of the highly potent opioid, which he sickened three other young children, including an 8-month-old girl who tested positive for fentanyl use.

Both the drugs and one of the devices were inside a hallway closet connected to an apartment where Brito was said to be staying.

Mendez told police he thoroughly cleaned the daycare, Divino Niño, six days a week and that a previous tenant may have left the one-kilogram press found there, according to court documents. She also said there had been no other visitors at the daycare on Friday, even though her husband was seen on surveillance footage taking bags out of the daycare minutes before first responders arrived, as well as earlier in the day, according to the federal complaint.

New York allows home day care for a small number of children, as long as they are licensed and inspected.

“Apparently, when the daycare wasn’t open, people were coming in and out of the apartment,” Aranda said.

The nursery opened its doors in January of this year. It passed both inspections, officials said, including a surprise visit by inspectors earlier this month.

2023-10-05 15:32:47
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