Boat crash manslaughter trial for George Pino is expected to begin in June
Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they are ready to begin the trial in June for Doral real estate broker George Pino, who’s charged with manslaughter and vessel homicide for a 2022 Labor Day weekend boat crash that killed a teenage girl and severely injured another.
During a brief status hearing Tuesday morning, Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Laura Adams and attorney Mark Shapiro, one of Pino’s lawyers, told Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez they expect to be ready to select a six-person jury by June 1.
Opening statements are slated to begin by June 8.
Pino, 54, was piloting his 29-foot Robalo center console early Sunday evening on Sept. 4, 2022, when he slammed into a fixed channel marker in Biscayne Bay on his way to Ocean Reef Club, a gated community in north Key Largo. Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, 17, and Katerina Puig, now 21, were traumatically injured in the crash and pulled from the water unconscious.
READ MORE: Testimony of girls on boat leads to another charge for George Pino
There were 12 teenage girls on the boat; Pino’s daughter, Cecilia, had just turned 18 and had invited 11 of her girlfriends — all under 18 — to celebrate on the boating excursion to Elliott Key in Biscayne Bay with her parents, George and Cecilia Pino. They then headed to Ocean Reef, where Pino was a member at the time, for dinner.
Lucy died at a hospital the next day. Puig, a standout soccer player with Division I college prospects, continues to struggle with basic motor skills and uses a wheelchair. Both were about to embark on their senior year at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy.
Another girl was seriously injured, but has made a full recovery.
Pino told investigators another, larger boat was coming at him and threw a wake that caused him to lose control of his boat and crash. But investigators said in their final report no witness in the busy channel that day nor any of the 13 passengers on his boat saw that vessel.
After a nearly year-long investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office charged Pino with three misdemeanor counts of careless boating causing serious bodily injury or death, a minor charge that carries a maximum penalty of 60 days in county jail.
READ MORE: Why was George Pino hit with similar charges in boat crash that killed teen girl?
Pino pleaded not guilty to those counts, and his attorneys filed a motion to dismiss two of the counts in August 2024, arguing that although three people were seriously injured and one died, there was only one crash, according to court documents.
The Miami Herald published a series of articles containing interviews with witnesses who said they were shocked that investigators never followed up with them. . The stories prompted a Miami-Dade firefighter at the scene to tell prosecutors that Pino appeared intoxicated when he was pulled from the water.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reopened its investigation and dropped the three careless-boating counts and charged Pino on Oct. 31, 2024, with vessel homicide, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
READ MORE: George Pino charged with vessel homicide in crash that killed a girl. What does that mean?
Last August, almost a year after the vessel-homicide charge, prosecutors tacked on a charge of manslaughter, an equal offense to vessel homicide with the same consequences. Pino pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The manslaughter charge came after several of the girls on Pino’s boat gave statements detailing the scene. They previously told investigators little about what happened that day because they were minors. One told attorneys in depositions that she drank up to 10 beers and multiple shots of other alcohol on the boat that day, sources told the Miami Herald.
Investigators knew from the beginning that there was a lot of alcohol on the Robalo because when they pulled it from the bottom of the channel the day after the crash, there were more than 60 empty or partially empty bottles and cans of various sorts of booze on the vessel.
Pino’s attorneys said the containers were from five boats tied up that day at Elliott Key, although they have not said who were on the other boats
‘Radio silence’: Deadly boat crash witnesses say they weren’t interviewed by investigators
The FWC nevertheless concluded in its final August 2023 report that alcohol wasn’t a factor in the crash, and the lead investigator said Pino declined to voluntarily submit to have his blood drawn to check for drinking that night because his attorney wasn’t present. However, the investigator’s body camera recorded Pino giving the reason for declining the test as he “had two beers.”
In the manslaughter charge, prosecutors wrote that Pino “intentionally committed an act or acts, and/or acted with culpable negligence .... which caused the death of Luciana Fernandez.”
The State Attorney’s Office confirmed to the Herald at the time of the new charge that it resulted from information from a witness and said the manslaughter charge was “deemed appropriate.”
Joel Denaro, attorney for Melissa and Andres Fernandez, Lucy’s parents, said the family remains frustrated because they say Pino had the chance to take responsibility for the crash by pleading guilty to the original misdemeanor charges.
“The family is asking for accountability and the truth,” Denaro said. “They’re still not getting either.”
Pino can’t be convicted of both charges because of the constitutional protection against double jeopardy or being punished more than once for the same crime.
Pino’s attorney, Howard Srebnick, said in a statement to the Herald at the time that the charge was an “unwarranted, redundant accusation that does nothing to bring clarity or justice; it only deepens public misunderstanding, fuels a false narrative that ignores the facts, and unfairly portrays Mr. Pino in the court of public opinion.”
“As we have said all along, this was a tragic accident, not a crime.”
