Editor’s Note: The following is an extended version of the story that appears in our latest print edition.

In what was another milestone in a long and painful battle to obtain justice for one-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici, who died from an accidental fentanyl overdose on Sept. 15, 2023 at a Kingsbridge Heights daycare center, the infant’s parents, Otoniel Feliz Samboy and Zoila Dominici, hugged through their tears inside a Bronx Criminal Court courtroom on Friday, Nov. 21, when a jury delivered two unanimous guilty verdicts for the couple charged in relation to their son’s death.

 

The jury returned the verdicts sometime after 4 p.m. on Nov. 21. Feliz Samboy and Dominici later joined Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, Assistant District Attorney Karl Miller, and others for a press conference inside the courthouse, saying though they felt they received justice, the verdict will not bring Nicholas back.

 

Clark said, “Today, a Bronx jury returned guilty verdicts of second-degree murder, and assault against the operator of a daycare and her husband in the fentanyl poisoning death of 22-month-old Nicholas Domenici and the exposure of three other children suffered on September 15, 2023.”

 

She continued, “Grei Mendez and her husband, Felix Herrera Garcia ran an illegal narcotics operation out of the El Divino Niño daycare on Morris Avenue and showed such depraved indifference that they hid fentanyl under the floor where the children took naps.”

The district attorney added, “Nothing we can do will bring back Nicholas. His death has torn a hole in the hearts of his mother, father and siblings, and saddened the entire Bronx community.  I hope that these convictions will give the family a sense of justice and help them to gain peace and closure.”

 

Clark thanked Miller, his colleagues, and the entire DA crime victims team who she said had worked very hard on the case over the last two years. She added that it was a sad time when people lose their children. “You send your kids to daycare; you expect them to learn and have fun,” she said. “You never expect that they never come home again.”

 

Feliz Samboy thanked Clark, the State prosecution team, and the U.S. justice department involved in the federal case. In reference to the defense’s closing arguments, he said in part in English, “This is what we’re looking for, justice for Nicholas because some people try to say because only having drugs [in] the daycare doesn’t make them guilty, but kids [are] not supposed to be exposed to any drugs. Ok, they have a certain amount of drugs in his body, but he’s not supposed to have any!”

 

Nicholas’s dad repeated, “He’s not supposed to have any! That’s why we’re looking for justice. All the kids [in] this world [are] not supposed to be close to any drugs! They are supposed to be safe.” Switching to Spanish, he thanked everyone again for all their “great efforts” to secure justice for Nicholas.

“Today, this family is broken and suffering because of this fact,” he said, adding that once again, justice was served, this time at State level. He went on to say that those who were guilty must pay [in reference perhaps to the upcoming sentencing of the defendants]. Thanking the whole legal team once again, he concluded, “We are Nicholas! We are Nicholas! We are Nicholas! Thanks.”

 

Grei Mendez, 36 at the time of her arrest, and the former manager of the now-closed daycare center, which was located in the Kingsbridge Heights section of The Bronx, had previously pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced in early March on various federal charges stemming from Nicholas’s death, as reported.

 

She is already serving a 45-year sentence relating to those charges. On Nov. 21, she was found guilty of two separate New York State charges in Bronx Criminal Court, murder in the second degree and assault in the first degree.

 

Shielded by several law enforcement officers while in the courtroom, presided over by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy, Mendez appeared to be dressed in either a baby-pink skirt or a dress and a white cardigan or jacket, and wore her dark, roughly shoulder-length hair loose. Her hands were cuffed behind her back until she was seated. She did not appear to be cuffed at the ankles, though this was the case during a previous Bronx Criminal Court appearance.

 

Her husband, Felix Herrera Garcia, 35 at the time of his arrest, and who, as reported, also pleaded guilty on similar federal charges in federal court and is also serving a 45-year sentence relating to Nicholas’s death, was also found guilty on separate State charges of murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree on Nov. 21.

GREI MENDEZ, THE daycare owner of now-closed El Divino Niño Daycare Center, located on Morris Avenue in Kingsbridge Heights, The Bronx, leaves the 52nd Pct in Norwood in September 2023, after she was charged in the death of Nicholas Feliz Dominici, 1, who died on Sept. 15, 2023, from an accidental fentanyl overdose. A covert fentanyl racket was being run at the daycare. Three others, including Mendez’s husband were also charged in connection to the incident, in which three other infants also overdosed but survived after they were administered Narcan, a lifesaving drug that helps reverse the effects of an overdose. Video by Norwood New via YouTube

Herrera Garcia was found not guilty of assault in the first degree, with the Bronx District Attorney’s office later explaining to Norwood News that, unlike Mendez, it was decided his actions didn’t meet the threshold of a first-degree assault charge, and it was therefore likely downgraded to second-degree assault.

 

It was also explained that the assault charges for both defendants related to the other three toddlers who had also overdosed from fentanyl on the day Nicholas died but who had survived after they were administered Narcan, a lifesaving drug that can help reverse the effects of an overdose.

 

Herrera Garcia was also shielded by law enforcement officers in the courtroom but appeared to be wearing a white shirt and a blue sweater on top, and possibly beige-colored pants. His hands were also cuffed behind his back until he was seated. He had also been shackled at the ankles during a prior Bronx Criminal Court appearance.

 

Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38 at the time of his arrest, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41 at the time of his arrest, a cousin of Herrera Garica, were also charged in federal court in connection with the incident. Both Parra Paredes and Acevedo Brito also pleaded guilty to various federal charges. We await further information on their sentencing from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York.

At Bronx Criminal Court, one of the lawyers for the defense, Javier Solano, was overheard speaking in Spanish to family members/supporters of the defendants before the verdict was read. He asked them to refrain from reacting loudly inside the courtroom to whatever verdict would be announced, and to save it instead until they had exited. Some were later seen tearful or crying after the verdicts were read and as they left.

 

Miller had led the State prosecution case and had also been on the federal prosecution team. During the press conference, Norwood News asked, and it was confirmed by, Miller that Mendez’s own child was not present at El Divino Niño daycare center on the day Nicholas died. “Yes, her son was not attending the daycare,” he said.

 

As reported,, at least one female neighbor we spoke to on the day Nicholas died spoke well of Mendez and seemed shocked to hear of the events that unfolded at the daycare. The woman mentioned that she had never seen the daycare manager with a drink or a cigarette in her hand.

 

Sentencing will take place at a later date.

 

As reported, earlier this year, the city council passed various laws on daycare inspection training and parents’ rights as regards childcare programs, something Nicholas’s parents had pressed for in the wake of his death. Other laws are pending at State level.

 

On the first anniversary of Nicholas’s death, Nicholas Feliz Dominici Way was unveiled in his memory at Kingsbridge Terrace and East Kingsbridge Road in the his native Kingsbridge Heights. It followed prior remembrance services.

 

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson had previously said she disagreed with those who sought to downplay the severity of the fentanyl crisis in The Bronx. Shocking and tragic as Nicholas’s death was, it was not, unfortunately, the first of its kind.

 

Asked later how the couple’s other children were doing, Feliz Samboy and Dominici said they were doing good. For her part, as she addressed the press in Spanish, Dominici said, “Today is a great day in one way because even though we have a verdict for him today….it’s criminal…..but we don’t have our child.”

 

Breaking down in quiet tears as her husband slipped his arm around her waist, the young mom thanked Clark, Miller and everyone involved. She continued, “We still have our empty space, and it will be empty for the rest of our lives.” Gradually, raising her voice slightly, as if in a show of defiance for her lost son, Dominici added, “Nothing will fill it, but we have justice, the justice that Nicholas deserved!”

 

NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) provides training and regularly updated information on how to obtain and administer naloxone (Narcan). Click here for more information.