New witness leads to felony homicide charge 2 years after boat crash killed Lourdes girl
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Wrecked Justice
The Miami Herald spent more than two years dissecting the 2022 boat crash that killed 17-year-old Luciana ‘Lucy’ Fernandez and critically injured Katerina ‘Katy’ Puig. Herald reporters meticulously reviewed agency reports, spoke to witnesses never contacted by investigators and delved into public records to shine a light on what went wrong in Biscayne Bay, leading to George Pino being charged with misdemeanors, and ultimately, a felony.
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More than two years after a Biscayne Bay boat crash killed a 17-year-old girl and severely injured her classmate, the man who smashed his boat into a concrete channel marker that day — prominent real estate broker George Pino — is now facing a felony charge linked to the incident that could put him behind bars for up to 15 years.
Pino’s vessel homicide charge is much more serious than the careless boating charges the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office initially filed against him. Prosecutors re-evaluated the case after a new key witness came forward, sources say. That witness spoke out after the Miami Herald published a series of articles detailing how boaters who were immediately on the scene after the crash were never contacted by state investigators.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter Matthew Smiley, who was among the first rescuers on the scene, gave a statement to prosecutors saying Pino showed signs of being intoxicated when he came upon him in the bay shortly after the crash.
That contradicts the final report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state police agency that investigates boat crashes, which states “alcohol was not considered to be a contributing factor to this accident.” The FWC investigators on the scene, however, did not conduct sobriety tests on Pino.
The new charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, if Pino were to be convicted. Laura Adams, a prosecutor with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, announced the charge Thursday morning in a hearing before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Lizzet Martinez, who transferred the case to felony circuit court.
READ MORE: What does a vessel homicide charge mean?
Pino’s attorney, Howard Srebnick, sent the Herald a statement Thursday afternoon, critical of the state’s new charge: “I am dismayed by the State’s surprise-decision to file this new charge more than two years later. Officers on the scene of the crash determined that Pino was not intoxicated; Pino did not exceed any posted speed limit, Pino had the required number of Coast Guard-approved life preservers on board the vessel, and despite sustaining a head injury himself (requiring fifteen stitches), Pino made heroic efforts to rescue the injured passengers, including diving under the capsized boat. This was an accident, not a crime, much less a felony.”
The new charge comes more than a year after prosecutors outraged the families of the two girls most impacted — Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, an Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior who died from injuries sustained in the crash, and Katerina Puig, a Lourdes soccer team captain who suffered traumatic brain injury — by charging Pino with only three careless boating misdemeanors. Those charges, which have since been dropped by prosecutors in favor of the felony, carried a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.
The new charge follows a Miami Herald investigation of the Sept. 4, 2022, crash. Over the past two years, the Herald has published scores of investigative articles and interviewed key witnesses on the scene immediately after Pino crashed into the concrete marker, causing his 29-foot center console Robalo to capsize. The 14 people on board — 12 teenage girls, Pino and his wife Cecilia — were jettisoned into Biscayne Bay.
The three eyewitnesses whom the Herald interviewed at length weren’t contacted by either the State Attorney’s Office or the FWC. Yet the two agencies told the girls’ families — and the press when announcing the misdemeanor charges in August 2023 — that they conducted a thorough investigation.
The Herald also detailed how the FWC didn’t give Pino any sobriety tests immediately after the crash, a common police practice if alcohol is involved. The day after the crash, 61 empty bottles of booze, including an empty bottle of champagne, were found stashed on the boat after officers hauled it out of the water.
The FWC maintained it didn’t have probable cause to perform the sobriety tests the night of the crash because Pino, who acknowledged to investigators he had been drinking that day, didn’t seem impaired at the scene.
READ MORE: 61 booze containers on crashed boat in Keys — and parents outraged over minor charges
The Herald also chronicled how the Pino case differed significantly from an October 2023 boating accident off Key West. In that case, a boat captain also struck a fixed channel marker and a passenger died; that captain was immediately charged with felony vessel homicide by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.
READ MORE: Two tragic Keys boat crashes, two vastly different charges. FWC denies special treatment
New witness comes forward
Smiley, the Miami-Dade firefighter, spoke up after reading the Miami Herald’s two articles detailing how three eyewitnesses who saw the crash’s immediate aftermath from their boats — and in two instances, performed CPR on the victims before first responders arrived — were upset that investigators had never followed up with them. They had given their names and numbers to the investigators at the scene.
After reading the articles, Smiley contacted an attorney he knows, who relayed his narrative to one of the witnesses who spoke to the Herald, also an attorney. That witness then contacted Joel Denaro, an attorney for the Fernandez family. Denaro provided Smiley’s information to prosecutors.
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Smiley’s statement corroborates what the three eyewitnesses told the Herald: that Pino was clinging to the bow of his overturned boat long after the other 13 people on board, except for Lucy, were rescued.
Pino told FWC investigators that he rescued Lucy moments after the crash — which became the official narrative in the FWC’s final report. But the three witnesses interviewed by the Herald said that didn’t happen. Pino, they said in separate interviews, clung to the boat as people screamed about how Lucy was missing.
READ MORE: Injured girl’s family ‘outraged’ at minor charges in fatal Florida Keys boat crash probe
“I was flabbergasted. I could tell you it was factually inaccurate,” Hilary Candela, one of the eyewitnesses who spoke to the Herald, said of Pino’s actions detailed in the FWC report.
Candela, an insurance executive who grew up boating in Miami and knew Pino, said he urged a seemingly dazed Pino to look under the vessel for Lucy.
“Go look under the boat. If you don’t, I will,’’ Candela shouted to Pino from his boat.
Pino finally did, and Candela’s hunch proved correct. Pino found Lucy unresponsive under the boat and swam her to one of the several vessels gathered around the scene, said Candela, who said he repeatedly called the lead FWC investigator to discuss what he witnessed but didn’t hear back from him.
The Herald on Thursday reached out to FWC Chair Rodney Baretto, who did not respond. Instead, Shannon Knowles, an FWC spokeswoman, sent the Herald a statement: “The FWC, as we have since the beginning of this investigation, remains in contact with prosecutors to assist the SAO in any way.”
Birthday party for their daughter
Pino, 54, who lives in Galloway Glen in Kendall and is president of State Street Realty, a Doral real estate agency, was piloting the 12 teenage girls and his wife back to their second home at the gated Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo. They were celebrating their daughter Cecilia’s 18th birthday on Elliott Key, an island popular with boaters in Biscayne National Park.
They had planned to host a birthday dinner that night in Ocean Reef with their daughter and her 11 friends on the boat from Lourdes, Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Coconut Grove and Westminster Christian School in Palmetto Bay. Cecilia was a student at Carrollton.
But at 6:37 p.m. Sunday of the 2022 Labor Day weekend, Pino crashed his boat into Channel Marker 15, the very last marker in the channel in an area known as Cutter Bank. He was going nearly 50 mph. The crash’s impact shredded the hull and hurtled all the passengers into the bay.
Most had minor injuries. But Lucy, Katerina and Isabella Rodriguez, one of the girls, had serious head injuries.
Isabella has since made a full recovery, but Katerina is permanently disabled. Lucy died the next day at HCA Kendall Hospital.
Questions about Pino’s story
Pino told investigators that the wake from another, larger boat coming in the opposite direction in the channel caused him to lose control of his vessel and slam into the channel marker.
But no other witnesses saw that boat, nor was his version of events corroborated by photographic evidence or data from his boat’s GPS unit, which showed Pino’s boat heading straight at the channel marker, according to the FWC’s August 2023 report. Prosecutors used the report to charge Pino with the three careless boating charges.
The misdemeanor charges enraged the Fernandez and Puig families, who accused Pino of lying that day — and continuing to lie — as he challenged his criminal case. Pino pleaded not guilty to the three misdemeanors.
In a now-settled civil lawsuit, the Puigs accused Pino and his wife Cecilia of supplying the teens alcohol throughout the day. A court judgment was issued against Cecilia Pino for $16 million. All parties — the Puigs, the Pinos, Hudson Excess Insurance Company and Citizens Property Insurance Corp. — are in litigation. A judge sealed George Pino’s settlement.
In police body camera footage immediately after the crash and released to the Herald, Pino declined to submit blood to test for alcohol, saying to the FWC officer, “I had two beers.”
FWC lead investigator William Thompson, however, did not mention in his final report that Pino acknowledged drinking that day. Instead, Thompson wrote that Pino declined the sobriety test because his attorney wasn’t present.
READ MORE: Police say alcohol played no role in fatal boat crash, but bodycam video raises questions
The State Attorney’s Office has previously said the FWC’s final report hindered prosecutors from pursuing more serious charges.
With Smiley coming forward, prosecutors from Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office began taking a deeper look into other evidence. They homed in on the GPS data from Pino’s boat, which they determined contradicted his version of events prior to striking the channel marker, sources say.
Both the Fernandez and Puig families, in separate statements to the Herald, said they were thankful that prosecutors reevaluated the case.
Denaro, the attorney for the Fernandez family, released a statement saying, “The Fernandez family is grateful to Ms. Rundle and her team of lawyers for their perseverance and dedication.”
The family of Katerina Puig, the star soccer player who suffered a severe brain injury, also thanked the prosecutors:
“The Puig family is grateful for the State’s continued efforts in prosecuting Mr. Pino for his reckless operation of his vessel while transporting 12 teenage girls and resulting in the death of Lucy Fernandez.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 8:51 AM.
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