Leader of Bronx drug mill that doubled as day care hit with 45-year sentence

The sobbing mother of a 1-year-old who died from fentanyl poisoning at a Bronx day care that doubled as a drug den called the tragedy “every parent’s nightmare” as the narcotics mill’s leader was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

“I can tell you something for sure, to celebrate your child’s birthday in a cemetery is not an easy thing,” Zoila Dominici, tears streaming down her face, told a Manhattan court as Felix Herrera Garcia was sentenced Wednesday — a week before Nicholas Feliz Dominici would have turned three years old.

The convicted drug dealer, who pleaded guilty in June to all charges stemming from the boy’s death at Divino Niño Daycare in Kingsbridge, teared up as well while addressing the court — and pleaded with Dominici’s family to someday forgive him.

“I know that perhaps my apology today means nothing, but for me it matters very much,” he said, standing in a jail-issued tan jumpsuit, his fingers pressed into the defense table in front of him.

“I know this won’t be easy, but I ask if they can ever forgive me,” he added. “I have nightmares about what happened that day.”

Wednesday’s hearing marked the first sentencing stemming from the shocking death inside the day care where Herrera Garcia and his partners stored 12 kilograms of narcotics in trap doors and closets hidden underneath the mats where toddlers played and took naps, authorities say.

Three other children were poisoned as well in the Sept. 15, 2023 episode — including one 2-year-old boy who was rushed to the hospital and narrowly avoided death after being revived with the opioid overdose drug Narcan, court papers say.

Arriving on the scene after receiving a call from his wife Grei Mendez, who ran the daycare and faces her own criminal charges, Herrera Garcia stayed there for just two minutes before fleeing the building while holding bags of narcotics, photo evidence shows.

“With children dying on the floor, he rescues the drugs and not the babies,” federal prosecutor Maggie Lynaugh said in court Wednesday.

Herrera Garcia also continued selling narcotics despite his own brother’s death in October 2022 after being exposed to fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than heroin.

“The warning signs that this tragedy was going to occur could not have been more clear, and the defendant wantonly ignored them all,” the feds wrote in a court filing last week.

Herrera Garcia fled the country after Nicholas’ death and was later nabbed by authorities in Mexico.

Herrera Garcia, speaking through a Spanish interpreter, insisted Wednesday that he had tried to “help” the dying kids, and claimed he only left the scene after hearing sirens from an arriving ambulance.

Prosecutors had called for a life sentence on his guilty plea charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death. 

But Judge Jed Rakoff instead doled out the decades-long sentence, after saying the death did not reach the level of premeditated murder.

The judge however called the case far more serious than “everyday manslaughter,” and decried the tragedy of what he called “pitiful, innocent babes that were poisoned and in one case killed.”

Mendez’s case is still pending, and she has pleaded not guilty. Herrera Garcia’s cousin, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, pleaded not guilty as well.

A fourth defendant, 38-year-old Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, has also pleaded guilty for his role in the drug operation and is awaiting sentencing.