FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WFLA) — A Fort Lauderdale woman was charged in the alleged fentanyl overdose death of her two-year-old child.
According to a NBC Miami report, Gertrude Desir, 27, was arrested Thursday in Fort Lauderdale after police found her in an abandoned house.
Broward Assistant State Attorney Eric Linder told a judge on Friday that the child appeared to have died of a drug overdose.
“The amount of fentanyl in the deceased’s system, in the two-year-old, it was seven times higher than what’s considered a high lethal amount for an adult,” Linder said. “There was a prior child neglect investigation involving Ms. Desir where she was advised that she cannot use drugs if she wants to keep custody of her children.”
NBC Miami found court records stating Desir was arrested for interfering with a drug investigation in Pompano Beach in 2016. In that incident, Desir reportedly stepped out of her home while holding a baby and told Broward deputies to leave. The arrest report stated she became enraged when deputies told her to put the child down and said, “I will put you under if you touch my baby or me”.
That charge in that incident was dropped and she pled no contest to resisting an officer without violence, which is a misdemeanor. The child involved in the 2016 incident was not the child that allegedly overdosed.
Desir was booked into the Broward County Jail on Thursday for charges of aggravated manslaughter, possession of fentanyl, cocaine and drug paraphernalia.
