Green Bay Academy's license revoked after employee charged with dealing fentanyl in parking lot
A De Pere woman faces criminal charges in connection with an early January fentanyl drug deal in the parking lot of a Green Bay child care center.
The center, Green Bay Academy, had its license revoked on Thursday, according to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families' Child Care Finder website. The violations tied to the revocation include the drug deal and state it “put the children’s lives in serious danger,” according to the website. Another says the facility did not inform DCF within 24 hours that one of its employees was arrested in connection with the incident.
Tatiana Quinones, 21, is charged in Brown County Circuit Court with one count of delivering 10 grams or less of a fentanyl on or near a youth center as a party to a crime.
The criminal complaint states a confidential informant bought 50 fentanyl pills from Quinones, who was selling them on behalf of someone else. This person was initially charged in connection with this incident, but their charges have been dismissed.
The confidential informant on Jan. 3 bought the pills from Quinones in the parking lot of Green Bay Academy, 2280 Finger Road, while children were still in the center, according to the complaint.
Quinones was supervising children in the 2½- to 3-year-old room on Jan. 3, the complaint says. The narcotics investigator who wrote the report said they observed Quinones answer a phone call, then enter a bathroom, then exit the child care center to meet the confidential informant.
Afterwards, the report said, she returned to the bathroom, then to the 1-year-old room and then to the bathroom again before going back to supervise children in the 2½- to 3-year-old room.
The investigator wrote that based on the footage, they believe the pills Quinones sold to the confidential informant were stored inside the bathroom of the center’s 1-year-old room.
“Based on my training and experience, Quinones put multiple children’s lives, whose care she was entrusted with, at risk by storing the fentanyl pills in the daycare,” the investigator wrote. “If Quinones were to drop even one of the small pills, a child could have easily picked it up off the ground and swallowed it, causing them to overdose and possibly die.”
As the result of a later search of her residence, Quinones was also charged with possessing 10 grams or less of fentanyl with the intent to deliver, possession of THC and possession of drug paraphernalia, the complaint says.
The center could not be reached for an interview, and neither could the defense and prosecution.
Kelli Arseneau of The Post-Crescent contributed to this report.
Madison Lammert covers child care and early education across Wisconsin as a Report for America corps member based at The Appleton Post-Crescent. To contact her, email mlammert@gannett.com or call 920-993-7108. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to Report for America by visiting postcrescent.com/RFA.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Green Bay day care license revoked after alleged parking lot drug deal
