Fentanyl Mill in NYC Daycare Leads to Toddler’s Death, Man Sentenced to 45 Years

A New York City man has been hit with a 45-year prison sentence for running a fentanyl mill out of a daycare center, leading to the overdose death of a toddler last year, officials said.

Felix Herrera Garcia, 35, was caught in Mexico and brought back to the U.S. after he fled the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York said in a Wednesday press release announcing his sentencing. 

The drug trafficking operation was running out of Divino Niño Daycare in the Bronx from at least October 2022 until four children under the age of three suffered from fentanyl poisoning in September 2023, investigators said. 

One of the children, 22-month-old Nicholas Dominici, succumbed to the dangerous substance. The surviving children had to be revived with Narcan, according to a criminal complaint. 

Upon searching the center, police discovered that Herrera Garcia and multiple co-conspirators “maintained more than eleven kilograms of fentanyl and heroin in secret compartments, or traps, located underneath the floor tiles in the playroom of the Daycare, where the children played, ate, and slept on a daily basis.”

Mexican law enforcement authorities aided the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and other agencies in locating and capturing him. 

After pleading guilty on June 10, Judge Jed S. Rakoff handed Herrera Garcia the 45-year sentence, plus five years of supervised release.

“Felix Herrera Garcia operated a deadly fentanyl trafficking enterprise out of a Bronx daycare, recklessly putting babies at risk of fentanyl exposure,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “Tragically, on September 15, 2023, one child was killed and four others were poisoned at the daycare by the defendant’s deadly drugs. This case demonstrates the deadly reach and scope of the fentanyl epidemic, and the profound damage it inflicts on American lives, including the lives of the most vulnerable among us.”

“This Office and our law enforcement partners will work tirelessly to ensure that anyone who harms or risks the lives of children in connection with their deadly narcotics activities will be brought to justice,” the prosecutor added.