Parents of Lourdes student killed in boat crash want answers. They turned to a court

The family of the 17-year-old Lourdes student killed in a boat crash on Labor Day weekend in 2022 — frustrated by police and prosecutors’ investigation — asked a Miami-Dade judge to help them obtain evidence in the case.

During a hearing Wednesday, prosecutor Ruben Scolavino vowed to turn over any documents the state has “in our custody and control” in the case of George Pino, a real estate broker who’s charged with misdemeanor careless boating offenses in connection to the crash that claimed the life of Lucy Fernandez.

Lucy’s family, however, won’t be able to obtain some of the evidence they explicitly requested, including Pino’s cellphone records, after Miami-Dade County Court Judge Lizzet Martinez ruled that the request was out of the court’s jurisdiction.

On Sept. 4, 2022, Pino and his wife Cecilia Pino took their daughter and 11 of her friends on a boating outing for her 18th birthday. The celebration ended when the 29-foot Robalo operated by Pino struck a channel marker, launching all 14 people on board into Biscayne Bay.

Lucy later died at the hospital, and 18-year-old Katerina Puig, also a student at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, was critically injured. Puig survived but is permanently disabled after the crash.

READ MORE: 61 booze containers on crashed boat in Keys — and parents outraged over minor charges

Attorney Joel Denaro, who’s representing the Fernandez family, said gathering the records would help Lucy’s loved ones uncover what occurred leading up to the tragedy. But prosecutors say they don’t have Pino’s phone records.

Also at the center of the back-and-forth was a series of photos from a camera located at the channel marker, which would have captured the accident. Information about the footage was redacted in the final report penned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, though Lucy’s father Andres Fernandez said he read the unredacted report.

“In sum, it states that there is a camera (facing north) which takes periodic pictures, also confirming no other boat,” Fernandez said in a text message to Denaro.

It’s unclear if the images from the time of the crash will be handed over to the Fernandezes, as in court on Wednesday prosecutors said the state didn’t possess the footage from the channel marker camera. At a hearing the day before, Scolavino emphasized that he wanted to avoid the images being released to the public because the cameras are used in federal drug and human trafficking investigations.

The Fernandez family, Denaro said, recruited him to represent them because they lost faith in investigators and in the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

“We’re not here for money...” Denaro said at the hearing. “We’re here for the truth. We’re here for justice.”

A faulty probe?

Wednesday’s hearing came after the Miami Herald reported that police and prosecutors didn’t follow up with a key witness who contradicted Pino’s main defense: That another boat caused him to slam into a channel marker at 47 mph on that calm, clear Sunday.

Officers with the FWC, records show, asked Thomas Watson and his wife Melinda, a registered nurse who helped the injured, what they witnessed at the scene. Watson stated that there was no other boat involved.

READ MORE: Prosecutors didn’t talk to eyewitness before filing misdemeanor charges in deadly boat crash

But neither the FWC nor prosecutors followed up to take written statements from them before filing misdemeanor charges against Pino. Prosecutors finally reached out to Watson this summer, nearly two years after the crash and 10 months after they filed charges against Pino.

Witnesses, including passengers on Pino’s vessel, also told investigators that Pino didn’t make any evasive maneuvers — as he said he did — before ramming the Robalo into the channel marker. An analysis of the GPS data on Pino’s boat backs up the witnesses’ statements.

And yet, Pino’s attorney repeated the claim in a March 13, 2023, petition filed in Miami federal court seeking to limit Pino’s liability from potential lawsuits from the crash.

Denaro, at the hearing, slammed the probe. The “ineptitude” by prosecutors wasn’t going to hold Pino accountable for misleading investigators, he said.

“All the witnesses were in the care and custody of the state...” Denaro said. “They just never bothered to question [them.]”

Defending the investigation, Scolavino pointed out that the case involved a “large swath” of people on the scene and that it was “impossible to talk to everyone.” The inquiry, he said, remains active.

“We interviewed everyone that we could,” Scolavino said in court Tuesday. “...Our investigation is not complete until a jury has rendered a verdict.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2024 at 5:30 AM.

Grethel Aguila

Miami Herald

Grethel covers courts and the criminal justice system for the Miami Herald. She graduated from the University of Florida (Go Gators!), speaks Spanish and Arabic and loves animals, traveling, basketball and good storytelling. Grethel also attends law school part time.