Baby killed by fentanyl, cocaine; dad held
Cops have charged an addict with manslaughter for the death of his 22-monthold son from fentanyl and cocaine in a Manhattan shelter, the NYPD said.
Anthony Rosa, 51, was charged early Wednesday with manslaughter and reckless endangerment for the June 17 death of Charles Rosa-Velloso.
Rosa, a drug addict who has been arrested dozens of times for narcotic offenses since 1986, was in charge of watching his son inside a Lower East Side shelter on Baruch Place when he found the tot facedown on a bed unconscious and covered in vomit.
The city medical examiner’s office later determined Charles died from acute intoxication — and had fentanyl and cocaine in his system, police said. His death was deemed a homicide.
It was not immediately disclosed how the toddler ingested the drugs, but investigators believe Rosa may have had drugs in the room.
Charles’ mother was in the hospital giving birth when EMS rushed the tot to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Lower Manhattan, police sources and shelter residents said. The baby could not be saved.
“The mother was in the hospital having another baby,” a shelter resident who asked not to be named told the Daily News after Charles’ death. “So he was with the baby on his own. He wasn’t supposed to have the baby alone.”
Cops took Rosa in for questioning but didn’t have enough evidence to immediately charge him. He returned to the shelter hours later, tenants said.
“The cops took him in and then they let him come back here,” the shelter resident said.
In the days that followed, the father remained at the shelter and lied about how his baby died, the resident said.
“He stopped me while I was doing laundry and — out of the blue — he said, Did you know my son died?” the resident said. “He fell down the stairs,” the father said, she recalled.
“Everybody knew he was lying,” she said. “Because he was telling people different things.”
Rosa had moved to another shelter, this one on E. Third St., before he was arrested, officials said.