The suspects who are being accused of running a drug den inside of a Bronx day care pleaded not guilty. Myles Miller reports.
A man who hid a stash of fentanyl beneath the floorboards of a Bronx daycare center was sentenced to 45 years in prison Wednesday in connection with a toddler's fatal opioid overdose.
Felix Herrera-Garcia previously pleaded guilty to drug charges and causing bodily harm after the death of Nicholas Dominici, who ingested fentanyl at the Divino Niño daycare in September 2023. Nicholas was 22 months old when he died. Three other children exposed to the fentanyl survived after medics administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
Herrera-Garcia, who fled the U.S. after the overdoses and was on the run in Mexico for about two weeks before he was arrested, admitted that he had stored fentanyl beneath the floor in the daycare’s playroom, according to prosecutors.
Given a chance to speak before the sentence was announced, he hoped that the families of the children can one day forgive him.
He said he and his child had played with the children. He also said that he tried to save two of the children and did not flee until an ambulance arrived.
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“At night, I have nightmares about what happened that day,” he said.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff rejected a request by prosecutors that Herrera-Garcia get life in prison because the death was not premeditated murder but was more akin to manslaughter in which a depraved indifference to human life is shown.
Still, the judge said, “This is so far removed from everyday manslaughter.”
The defense had requested the mandatory minimum 20-year prison term.
"Felix Herrera Garcia operated a deadly fentanyl trafficking enterprise out of a daycare, recklessly putting babies at risk of fentanyl exposure on a daily basis. On September 15, 2023, that operation resulted in tragedy when one child was killed and four others were poisoned by the defendant’s deadly drugs," said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. "This case demonstrates the deadly reach and scope of the fentanyl epidemic, and the tragic collateral damage it inflicts on American lives."
Herrera-Garcia’s wife, who authorities said operated of the daycare, along with one other person, were charged separately with murder, narcotics possession, and assault. Their cases are pending.
