The owner of a daycare where a 1-year-old boy died from fentanyl poisoning and three other children who fell ill pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges, resolving a case that horrified New York City and underscored the scourge of The fentanyl epidemic in the country..

Grei Mendez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and serious bodily injury, one count of possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in death, and one count of possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in bodily injury. serious. All three charges carry a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison.

Prosecutors said the children were poisoned because Mendez, her husband and a co-conspirator chose to operate a large-scale fentanyl packaging and distribution facility inside her daycare, which she ran from a small apartment in the Bronx.

On the afternoon of Sept. 15, 2023, when 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici and another child became unresponsive, prosecutors said Mendez made a series of phone calls: first to the community center that had referred the children to daycare , then to her husband, and then to 911.

Moments after Mendez called 911, but before emergency personnel arrived, prosecutors said her husband was seen on surveillance camera running out the front door and then exiting the back of the building with two heavy bags. .

Nicholas died from fentanyl and three other children, ranging in age from 8 months to 2 years, were hospitalized and treated with Narcan, police said.

At the daycare, authorities discovered a one-kilogram brick of fentanyl, two-kilogram pressing machines and two trapdoors that revealed hidden compartments beneath the game room’s floor tiles, authorities said.

Inside the traps were more than 11 kilograms of drugs, including fentanyl and heroin, as well as tools used to brand, package, distribute and traffic narcotics, according to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors said they have surveillance footage and a voicemail in which Mendez said running a daycare is not “his thing” to show that the facility was a front for the narcotics operation.

“Grei Méndez just admitted that he conspired to maintain and distribute large quantities of dangerously toxic fentanyl at a daycare center in the Bronx, a place where parents expected their children to be protected and safe,” said Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. , he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This case has demonstrated the senseless collateral damage caused by the fentanyl epidemic, and should remind us all that the demand for illegal narcotics often puts innocent bystanders at risk as drug traffickers ruthlessly pursue their profits,” Williams added.

Earlier this month, Méndez’s husband, Félix Herrera García, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after Pleading guilty to federal drug charges.. The third accomplice also pleaded guilty.