- Three children got sick and one died after likely exposure to fentanyl at daycare, according to the NYPD.
- Grei Mendez and Carlisto Acevedo Brito have been charged with multiple crimes.
Two people have been arrested and charged with multiple drug-related felony counts after three children became seriously ill and one died due to what local and federal authorities allege was fentanyl exposure.
The exposures took place at Divino Niño Daycare in the Bronx on September 15, according to the federal criminal complaint.
Grei Mendez, 36, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, were each charged with multiple crimes — among them, depraved-indifference murder, reckless manslaughter, multiple counts of reckless assault causing risk of death, and possession of narcotics — according to a report from the New York Police Department sent to Insider.
Per NPR, the two are facing local charges and federal drug charges from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
Both suspects are currently in custody, according to the federal complaint.
The federal complaint alleges that Mendez and Acevedo Brito, who lived in the same apartment, had been intending to distribute 400 grams of a substance containing fentanyl. Acevedo Brito is the cousin of Mendez's husband, according to the federal complaint.
A kilogram of the fentanyl was stored on top of children's playmats in the daycare, and the defendants also had paraphernalia used by narcotics traffickers, such as "kilo presses," according to the complaint.
Near 3 p.m. on September 15, Mendez reported to 911 that three children in her care were unresponsive — but not before she made three other phone calls, authorities alleged in the complaint. One was to another daycare employee, and two were to Mendez's husband, according to the federal complaint.
As emergency services rushed to the daycare, surveillance cameras showed Mendez's husband entering the daycare and then exiting it through the back door holding two shopping bags, according to the federal complaint.
Mendez also deleted over 21,000 text messages between her and her husband, which were later recovered by police.
Text messages from Acevedo Brito also indicated to law enforcement that he was involved in drug trafficking, according to the complaint.
According to the federal complaint, both Mendez and Acevedo Brito waived their Miranda rights before speaking with law enforcement. Both denied any knowledge of the drugs or kilo press in the daycare.
One-year-old Nicholas Dominici died due to the exposure, according to the NYPD report. Two of the other children, a 2-year-old boy and an 8-month-old girl, are in stable condition, while another 2-year-old boy is still in critical condition.
Fentanyl cannot be quickly absorbed through the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but instead must be ingested to be fatal.
The Drug Enforcement Administration did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Attorneys were not yet listed for the defendants.