Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced Wednesday, March 4, that the operator of a Bronx home daycare center and her husband were each sentenced to 25 years to life in prison by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy for the accidental death due to fentanyl poisoning of 22-month-old Nicholas Feliz Domenici on Sept. 15, 2023, and for the exposure of three other children to fentanyl who survived the poisoning.

 

As reported, Grei Mendez, 38, the daycare operator and Felix Herrera Garcia, 37, her husband, both of 2705 Morris Avenue, The Bronx, were found guilty on a State charge of second-degree murder (depraved indifference to human life) on Nov. 21, 2025. Additionally, Mendez was found guilty of the State charge of first-degree assault and Herrera Garcia was found guilty of the State charge of second-degree assault on the same date. Both had previously pleaded guilty in federal court on separate federal charges relating to the incident. Read more here.

 

“A beautiful little boy died and three children aged eight months to two years became seriously ill from fentanyl poisoning,” Clark said on Wednesday after the sentencing. “These babies were shields to protect a narcotics operation. Grei Mendez and her husband, Felix Herrera Garcia showed such depravity that they hid fentanyl under the floor where the children took naps. Little Nicholas paid with his life for their greed; now Mendez and Garcia will spend the rest of their days in prison.”

 

As reported, and according to facts at trial, on Sept. 15, 2023, in an apartment in 2707 Morris Avenue in the Kingsbridge Heights section of The Bronx, at a licensed daycare named El Divino Niño, four children were poisoned by exposure to fentanyl: 22-month-old Nicholas Dominici died, 2-year-old Abel Garcia suffered respiratory arrest but survived after being revived at a hospital, Abel’s 8-month-old sister, Kiara Garcia, and Jaziel Lino, another 2-year-old boy, suffered acute opioid intoxication requiring hospital treatment. Emergency medical service technicians used Narcan to reverse symptoms of the brother and sister.

The court heard that large quantities of fentanyl were being processed in the daycare center including with the use of kitchen equipment Mendez used to prepare the children’s food. Prosecutors said that when the children fell ill, and before calling 911, Mendez called her husband, who removed drugs and/or paraphernalia from the location. They said Mendez was also heard on the call telling her husband to go out the back of the daycare. Video showed Herrera Garcia fleeing the building through a back alley while carrying weighted plastic bags before police and medical responders arrived.

 

The court further heard that a kilo of fentanyl was found in a closet, and twelve additional kilos of fentanyl, heroin and other narcotic substances were found under a trap door in the floor of the playroom, directly below where the children played and slept. Kilo presses and drug packaging paraphernalia were found in the apartment as well, prosecutors said.

 

Reacting to the sentencing, City Council Member Pierina Sanchez (C.D. 14), who has been helping Nicholas’ parents, Otoniel Feliz Samboy and Zoila Dominici, navigate their journey to justice for their son over the last few years, said on Wednesday, after the sentencing, “Nicholas was a bright-eyed, joyful baby whose life was stolen. He should still be with us. And while no sentence will bring him back, I know his family felt some measure of relief today.”

 

Sanchez added, “As a mother, I remain in awe of Zoila and Otoniel. They did not miss a single court date in either the federal or state trials, listening to heart breaking details time and again, and they have continued to show up for their son and for other families—turning unimaginable grief into leadership and advocacy for change.”

The council member said that since Nicholas’ death, the community had worked to ensure his life leaves a lasting impact. “Here in the neighborhood, we renamed the street where Nicholas lived in his honor so that his life, and the responsibility we carry to protect children, are never forgotten. At the city level, we passed the Nicholas Feliz Dominici Childcare Safety Act to expand parent rights, strengthen inspections, and improve training for childcare providers. At the state level, we secured investments to strengthen safety in the West Bronx.”

 

Sanchez concluded, “I thank @bronxdaclark and Assistant District Attorney Karl Miller for pursuing the maximum sentence and for standing with the Dominici-Feliz family from the beginning in the pursuit of justice. Nicholas’ memory will continue to guide our work to fight for safer childcare, stronger oversight, and the dignity and protection every child and family deserves.”

 

As above, Mendez and Garcia are each currently serving 45-year sentences in federal prison after their convictions for narcotics trafficking resulting in Nicholas’s death. The state prison sentences will run concurrently to their federal sentences.

 

As reported, and as above, last year, the city council passed various laws, sponsored by Sanchez 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 protective laws sponsored by State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33) and other legislators have since passed at State level, as reported.

On Friday, March 6, at a separate event at the early childhood center located on the campus of Bronx Community College in the University Heights section of The Bronx, Norwood News asked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during his visit to the center if he had any words for Nicholas’ parents following the latest sentencing, and in the context of his administration’s roll-out of a 2K childcare program later this year in certain designated areas of the City.

 

“I think what I would say is we are focused on the safety well being of every single child across our city,” the mayor said. “It’s the cornerstone of everything that we do, and even today, when we’re here to speak about the expansion of universal childcare in our city, we do so knowing that we are looking to deliver high quality, safe childcare for every single family, and so as part of increasing access, and part of tackling an affordability crisis, it’s also a focus on ensuring this is the very kind of environment that any family will feel safe sending their child to.”

 

As above, on the first anniversary of Nicholas’ 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.

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

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 in November 2025 how their other children were doing, Nicholas’s parents said they were doing good. As she addressed the press in Spanish on that day, 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.”

NEW YORK CITY Mayor Zohran Mamdani talks to Norwood News about safety in childcare facilities during a visit to the early childhood center located on the campus of Bronx Community College in the University Heights section of The Bronx on Friday, March 6, 2026 in the context of his administration’s roll-out of a 2K childcare program later this year in certain designated areas of the City. Video by Síle Moloney

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.

The State case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Karl Miller, senior homicide counsel, who also worked on the federal case, and former Assistant District Attorney Izamar Plaza of Trial Bureau 50, under the supervision of Burim Namani, deputy chief of the Homicide Bureau, Christine Scaccia, chief of the Homicide Bureau, and under the overall supervision of James Brennan, deputy chief of the Trial Division, and Theresa Gottlieb, chief of the Trial Division.

 

Clark thanked David Slott, chief of the Forensic Sciences Unit; Ana Pimentel, homicide advocate supervisor at the Crime Victims Assistance Bureau, and Bronx District Attorney Senior Detective Investigators John Might, Yani Pascale, Kareen Clay and Bronx DA Detective Investigator Dwayne Anderson under the supervision of Chief Frank Chiara, for their assistance in the case.

 

She also thanked NYPD Detectives Sheldon Smith of the Bronx Homicide Squad, Manuel Cruz of the 52nd Precinct Detective Squad, and Special Agents Edison Serpa and Kyle Harrell of the Drug Enforcement Administration, NYPD Police Laboratory and Latent Print Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Margaret Lynaugh and Brandon Thompson of the Southern District of New York for their work in the case.