Gunman in Sergio Pino’s alleged murder-for-hire plot to kill wife pleads guilty
Little by little, the nine crew members accused of joining a murder-for-hire plot that authorities say was hatched by wealthy Coral Gables developer Sergio Pino to kill his wife are pleading guilty in the FBI case.
The latest to fess up: A gunman who threatened Pino’s wife with a pistol last summer while she pulled into the driveway of her Pinecrest home, according to court records. He then pointed the weapon at her daughter’s face after she ran out of the home because of the commotion.
Vernon Green, 53, pleaded guilty on Thursday in Miami federal court to the main murder-for-hire conspiracy charge along with stalking and brandishing a firearm during a violent crime. Green is the fourth defendant to admit to playing a part in Pino’s alleged scheme to kill his estranged wife, Tatiana.
Green, who has a prior criminal record, faces at least seven years in prison and potentially up to life at his sentencing in September.
A fifth crew member, Clementa Johnson, 49, who is accused of recruiting Green for the hit job, is scheduled to plead guilty later this month. The other four defendants appear to be negotiating plea deals as their trial continues to be postponed.
Fighting over millions
Tatiana Pino had sued her husband for divorce in 2022 and was still battling him in court over potentially tens of millions of dollars in joint personal and business assets when the 67-year-old developer fatally shot himself at his waterfront home in Cocoplum in Coral Gables before FBI agents could arrest him last July.
Tatiana, 56, who stood to inherit half of his empire — valued at more than $100 million — ended up receiving substantial marital and business assets after his death, but there are still unresolved disputes in probate court over his estate, court records show. She’s become president of her late husband’s business, Century Homebuilders Group in Coral Gables, while her daughter, Alessandra Pino, is director of administration.
Here’s what the FBI affidavits and other documents say about Pino’s alleged plot targeting his wife:
On June 23, 2024, Tatiana Pino drove to church in Kendall. She was followed by a man who’d been hired to tail her that Sunday morning.
Ten miles away, in Pinecrest, another man was parked in a truck outside her house, waiting for her return from Calvary Church, according to the FBI documents. As Tatiana pulled into her driveway, Vernon Green exited his truck and ran toward her, brandishing a gun. Tatiana slammed the horn and floored the gas pedal, roaring into her backyard.
Tatiana’s daughter, Allesandra, ran out of the house and was confronted by Green, who pointed his pistol “inches from her face,” grabbed her arm and told her to get back, the documents allege.
After the botched attempt on Tatiana’s life, Green fled in his truck. FBI agents went to her home that Sunday to gather evidence, including security surveillance footage. The following day, agents raided her husband’s home and business, Century Homebuilders Group, in Coral Gables.
Prior guilty pleas
In mid-April, two Miami-Dade men who never personally knew Pino pleaded guilty to federal charges involving his hiring of two crews to kill his wife.
Michael Jose Dulfo, 43, pleaded guilty to charges of stalking, racketeering and use of fire as part of efforts to ram an SUV driven by Pino’s wife, Tatiana, and to torch her sister’s vehicles. Dulfo faces at least 10 years in prison, but because he’s cooperating with federal prosecutors, his ultimate punishment is unclear.
Avery Bivins, 37, pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire conspiracy, stalking and brandishing a firearm as part of attempts to kill Tatiana, including the incident where Green pointed the gun at the wife and then at her daughter in the driveway of their Pinecrest home. Bivens faces from seven years up to life in prison, but since he’s also cooperating with authorities, it’s unclear what prison time he will get at his sentencing.
They decided to cooperate with prosecutors Abbie Waxman and Brian Dobbins in the early stages, according to their lawyers. In fact, Bivens flipped for the FBI as a cooperating witness a few days before Pino killed himself, playing a critical role in solidifying the feds’ case.
If Pino, the former CEO of Century Homebuilders Group, had not killed himself on the morning of July 16 as FBI agents swarmed his home, he would have been charged in the indictment as the lead defendant who directed the murder-for-hire conspiracy that unfolded in two parts.
In the first part, Pino recruited Bayron Bennett, a handyman who provided services for his yacht excursions. Bennett is accused of enlisting three other men — Dulfo, Jerren Keith Howard and Edner Etienne — for his crew in the alleged plot targeting the wife. In May, Etienne, 29, pleaded guilty to stalking, racketeering and use of fire in an arson attack.
Rammed truck backwards in her driveway
The group is accused of coordinating a couple of bizarre attacks to threaten and harm the wife. In August 2023, with Dulfo’s assistance, Etienne rented a Home Depot flatbed truck and rammed it backwards into Tatiana Pino’s Land Rover Defender in the driveway of her Pinecrest home and then sped away. Dulfo played the role of a lookout.
A month later, the same crew committed arson on three vehicles owned by Tatiana’s sister and brother-in-law at their Miami-Dade home, according to a factual statement filed with Dulfo’s plea agreement.
In the second part, Pino recruited a former felon who was working as a roofer on his Cocoplum home.
Fausto Villar then enlisted another ex-felon, Bivins, whom he knew from prison to help carry out the murder-for-hire scheme, according to the FBI. In turn, Bivins brought in another friend to execute the deadly plot, according to an FBI criminal complaint and the factual statement filed with his plea agreement.
Bivins, however, would end up betraying Villar when FBI agents persuaded him to call the roofer on July 15 on their burner cellphones. During that conversation, Villar recounted Pino’s plot to kill his wife at her Pinecrest home just weeks earlier and told him to cease contact until “the smoke clears,” according to the documents filed in Miami federal court.
The recorded conversation was a turning point in the FBI investigation that led to an attempt to arrest the high-profile developer the following day, when Pino killed himself with a gun in his Cocoplum home rather than surrender to agents.
Bivins’ decision to flip on Villar set the stage for the arrests of the roofer and others on charges of conspiring with Pino to kill his wife.
FBI breakthrough
The breakthrough in the FBI investigation came on July 12, when agents contacted Bivins, saying they had a federal search warrant for his cellphone and other evidence and wanted to talk with him. Bivins’ lawyer advised him to do so.
FBI agents learned Bivins knew Villar as “Cuba,” and that they got acquainted in state prison and remained in touch after their release. Villar reached out to Bivins in the fall of 2023 about a “wealthy man [Sergio Pino] who contracted him to kill his estranged wife,” according to FBI documents and Bivins’ factual statement.
Villar “enlisted Bivins to gather a group for the job,” which included contacting a friend, Clementa Johnson, to execute the hit on Pino’s wife, the documents say. Johnson then brought in his cousin, Green, the gunman accused of confronting Pino’s wife outside her home.
Bivins agreed to the arrangement, and he and Villar met multiple times.
According to Villar, Pino’s wife “wanted half of what Pino owned and would not settle for the offered 20 million dollars” in their divorce case, the FBI documents say.
“Pino was willing to pay $150,000 for the murder contract’s completion and there were would be an additional $150,000 if the contract was carried out without detection,” according to the documents. “Villar also provided two cash payments of $30,000 and $45,000 up front during two separate meetings.”
Villar also provided syringes, vials and injections for use in the plot targeting Pino’s wife, instructing that Tatiana “had to be killed by June 24, 2024, to ensure that she could not make a July 2024 divorce proceeding between her and Pino,” according to Bivins’ factual statement.
According to federal authorities familiar with the investigation, Pino’s end game was to have Villar’s crew kill his wife and then in a cover-up inject her with a syringe of fentanyl, a lethal synthetic heroin, to make it look like she died by suicide.
Poisoned wife with fentanyl: feds
FBI documents state that attempts on Tatiana’s life began in 2019, years before the FBI says Pino hired “murder crews” to kill her. They say Tatiana “had been poisoned with fentanyl through the tampering of her prescribed medication,” making an oblique reference to her near-death overdose at the couple’s Cocoplum home in February 2022.
The central conspiracy charge brought against the defendants cites alleged attempts to kill Tatiana between June 2022 and July 2024 with cyanide, arsenic and fentanyl, as well as the other attempts on her life.
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 12:21 PM.
