Cocaine, fentanyl in dead tot’s bottle
A lethal mix of fentanyl and cocaine that killed a 22-monthold boy at a Manhattan shelter was placed in a baby bottle and given to the tot during feeding time, prosecutors said Thursday.
Anthony Rosa, who is currently charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment for the June 17 death of little Charles “Charlie” Rosa-Velloso, admitted he prepared the bottles and gave them to his infant son as investigators found traces of the two drugs in one of the bottles stored in the tot’s stroller, according to court documents.
The amount of fentanyl found in the toddler’s system “would be fatal to an adult,” doctors at the city’s medical examiner’s office told prosecutors.
Rosa is a drug addict who has been arrested dozens of times for narcotic offenses since 1986, police said. He 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, cops said.
Charlie’s 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. Charlie could not be saved.
The city medical examiner later determined Charlie died from acute intoxication — and had fentanyl and cocaine in his system, police said. His death was deemed a homicide.
Rosa, 51, was also charged with aggravated harassment for threatening an investigator for the Administration of Children’s Services probing Charlie’s death.
“I can find anyone in this city with a zip code...my mom worked for the post office,” Rosa allegedly wrote in a text message to the ACS investigator. “Final f----ing warning. A car can hit you. I don’t give a f---.”
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Eric Schumacher ordered Rosa held on $500,000 bail during a brief arraignment hearing Wednesday night, prosecutors said.
He’s due back in court on Dec. 6.