PRISON BOUND –

July 30, 2024 – Federal investigators said Mendez cut, capped and packaged the drugs blamed for the baby’s death. Mendez, unlike his girlfriend, is represented by the federal public defender’s office. While his cooperation with prosecutors doesn’t guarantee him a shorter prison sentence, it does make one more likely. 

Ian Goldstein, Yi’s defense attorney, said there’s “no proof” that Yi provided the drugs to the mother of the baby who died. He added that the infant’s mother, who faces her own criminal charges in relation to the baby’s death, “is trying to get leniency by testifying against my client.”

Yi and Mendez’s arrests followed a long investigation by the Boynton Beach Police Department, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after the infant’s death in 2022. Prosecutors believe the couple regularly sold fentanyl capsules to a mother and father in their 30s who were raising an infant in Boynton Beach.

The mother, Kelly Ann Kirwan, told police that she and her partner, who is not named in court records, often emptied the capsules onto the kitchen counters of their Boynton Beach home and snorted the white powder together. She identified Yi and Mendez as their sole suppliers.  

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