The horrendous Bronx daycare where a 1-year-old boy, Nicholas Feliz Dominici, died after inhaling fentanyl functioned as a drug front, neighbors said.
According to the NY Post, a longtime next door resident, who declined to give her name, claimed that the owner of Divino Nino Daycare, Grei Mendez De Ventura, put a business sign outside the basement space in the Kingsbridge property over a year ago, but she never saw any kids go in or out. “We all said, ‘Drogas.’ How could you not know?” she began. “It was a daycare for a year with no children. For one year, she had a daycare with no children, but people go in. But no babies? A daycare with no children and men coming in and out. Yes, we knew something. We knew something, something was not good happening there.”
On Friday (Sept. 15), three other kids, a pair of 2-year-old boys and one of their 8-month-old sisters, were also hospitalized, with one of the boys in critical condition, after the drug was cut and released into the air, according to law enforcement. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny told reporters that after raiding the day care, they “discovered a kilogram of fentanyl in an area that was used to give the children naps.” Three “kilogram press devices,” used to package large amounts of drugs, were also found.
De Ventura, 36, and building tenant Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, were arrested Saturday (Sept. 16) night on multiple counts of manslaughter, assault, criminal possession of a controlled substance and narcotic drug, and endangering the welfare of a child. “What are we doing? What are we doing as a society to our children?” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a press release. “This is total madness that we lost a child to this dangerous substance.”