A woman found guilty of trafficking drugs out of a Boston day care was allowed to remain licensed, and the city gave her nearly $80,000 while her case was pending.
The owner of a day care center in Boston, who was once honored by the mayor of Boston, ended up involved in a drug trafficking network.
Jenny Vicente, we learned about her almost two years ago, when the city of Boston recognized her work caring for children and even promoted the place that functioned as a daycare.
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However, court documents reveal that this woman worked for a drug trafficking organization.
Vicente was at a news conference with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was announcing new funds for child care in July 2022. By that date, the woman was already facing charges for drug trafficking.
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In an interview she gave to Telemundo New England at the time, Jenny Vicente spoke about her work as a child care provider, she even acknowledged that she received help to expand the day care. Official documents confirm that she obtained more than $77,000 in funds from the city.
Vicente was indicted on federal drug trafficking charges in 2019, yet was allowed to continue running the day care until last month, even after being found guilty. Massachusetts regulators failed to notice his case during criminal background checks when her license was renewed.
Vicente is on probation and faces a deportation order to the Dominican Republic. Her husband has a license from another day care in Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood.
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Asked about the incident on Friday, Wu noted that the state, not the city, licenses child care providers.
"We rely on the state and their agencies to conduct the appropriate background checks, vetting it as part of their regular license, issuing and renewal process," she said. "That did not happen here, and it is incredibly disturbing for us to see such a huge gap in what should be basic standards for safety and for families to feel like they can trust the systems that they're relying on at the city level. We also rely on that just like our families. And so when someone has a valid child care license, that to us that it is our assumption and belief that the state had operated with doing everything that they needed to do to verify that that license should have been awarded."
