Three of the four defendants charged in connection with the fatal overdose death of 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici at his Bronx, New York, day care last fall appeared in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday for a pre-trial hearing.
Renny Antonio Parra Paredes slouched in his chair, wearing a tan prison uniform with his hands cuffed and ankles shackled, as his attorney argued for a bail application. The attorney, John Francis Kaley, said his client was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.
Eight of Parra Paredes' family members stood up, willing to sign a bond of any amount if he was released. Kaley also proposed home confinement, electronic monitoring, and Parra Paredes' release to his mother, which Judge Jed Rakoff joked would be "cruel and unusual punishment."
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The government argued that Parra Paredes represented a danger to the community because he was mixing and packaging drugs for at least six months before he was arrested. They said he even made himself sick from the drugs on numerous occasions. They also said the tragedy at the day care would not have stopped him.
The government said Parra Paredes, the father of children in the Dominican Republic, was a flight risk, and that the only reason he didn’t initially flee was because he was unaware officials were looking for him.
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After hearing arguments from both sides, Rakoff denied the bail application, saying Parra Paredes remained a danger to the community and flight risk.
Parra Paredes and his three co-defendants, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, Felix Herrera Garcia and Grei Mendez, are facing charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and possession with intent to distribute narcotics resulting in death.
The defendants are accused of poisoning four children while running a drug operation at the day care center last fall.
Three of the children were sickened and Dominici died. Police said a kilogram of fentanyl was found underneath a mat where the children napped. Acevedo Brito, Herrera Garcia and Menendez also have faced charges in state court.
The federal trial is set to begin June 10.
