Suspect in Day Care Death Called Her Husband Before 911, Prosecutors Say

When four toddlers fell ill after being exposed to fentanyl at a Bronx day care, the owner called her husband twice before summoning rescue workers, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. It was too late for a 1-year-old boy.

The owner, Grei Mendez, 36, and a man, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, who was renting a room from her have already been arraigned on state murder, manslaughter and assault charges in Bronx Criminal Court.

They now each face one count of possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in death and one count of conspiracy, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

If convicted, the two would face a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and could face a maximum of life imprisonment, said Damian Wiliams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who announced the charges at a news conference on Tuesday.

“The defendants’ alleged conduct that led to those poisonings is unconscionable,” Mr. Williams said.

“Common sense dictates that when you drop off your baby, you expect the baby to be kept safe,” he added. “And so I don’t think there’s any other way to look at it other than it being incredibly reckless.”

Frank A. Tarentino III, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York division, added, “Fentanyl is the most urgent threat in our nation, and the tragedy that unfolded in the Bronx at the Divino Niño day care center demonstrates the danger that fentanyl poses to every New Yorker.”

The city’s medical examiner has not disclosed a cause of death for the 1-year-old, Nicholas Dominici, but police officials said medical tests had shown that the three other children had fentanyl in their systems. Those children — two boys, each 2 years old, and an 8-month-old girl — were described by a police official on Monday as doing “fine.”

A search of the Divino Niño day care on Morris Avenue on Friday after the children were removed and treated by medical personnel found large quantities of fentanyl along with machinery and paraphernalia used to package narcotics, according to the complaint.

In particular, the complaint said, law enforcement officers found a kilogram of fentanyl inside a bag that was stacked on top of pieces of a children’s play mat, along with two “kilo press” machines and machine parts, including a hydraulic press. Such presses are used by narcotics traffickers to produce kilogram-sized “bricks” for use in the distribution of wholesale amounts of narcotics.

The officers found a second kilo press in a bedroom closet, as well as vacuum bags and a vacuum sealer. The bags were similar to the bag in which the kilogram of fentanyl was found, the complaint said.

The complaint also said that before Ms. Mendez called 911 to report that three children in her care were unresponsive, she made three phone calls, including two to a person whom Ms. Mendez later identified as her husband. She spoke again with her husband after the 911 call. Before emergency personnel arrived, the husband entered the day care empty-handed and left about two minutes later carrying two shopping bags weighed down by their contents, the complaint said.

Instead of leaving through the front door, it noted, the husband exited the building into a back alley.

Mr. Williams, the prosecutor, described the actions by Ms. Mendez and her husband, who is described as a co-conspirator in the complaint, as an attempt “to cover up what happened.”

“And all of that happened while the children, the babies, were suffering from the effects of fentanyl poisoning and in desperate need of help,” Mr. Williams said.

Ms. Mendez and Mr. Brito were interviewed by law enforcement officers after waiving their Miranda rights, according to the complaint. Ms. Mendez denied there were any drugs in the day care and Mr. Brito denied knowing anything about drugs being there, the complaint said.

Ms. Mendez and Mr. Brito are to be brought before a federal magistrate judge on Tuesday.

The city’s health commissioner said on Monday that checking for fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, was not the usual practice of city child care inspectors.

Claire Fahy contributed reporting.