Pino pleads not guilty to new manslaughter charge in fatal boat crash case
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The investigation into 2022 boat crash that killed a high school student
On Sept. 4, 2022, a boat operated by real estate broker George Pino crashed in Biscayne Bay, killing 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez.
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Doral real estate broker George Pino — who piloted the boat that killed a 17-year-old girl when it crashed into a concrete channel marker in Biscayne Bay — pleaded not guilty Wednesday to his new manslaughter charge.
Pino’s defense attorney Mark Shapiro entered the plea on Pino’s behalf before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez. Pino, 54, appeared at the hearing via Zoom.
Prosecutors filed the additional charge last Thursday. Pino was already charged with vessel homicide, a nearly identical felony charge that also carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
READ MORE: Testimony of girls on boat leads to another charge for George Pino
Both charges are for killing 17-year-old Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, who was starting her senior year at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy. The Sept. 4, 2022, crash also seriously injured her classmate, Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 20, a standout soccer player still regaining basic motor skills.
In court, prosecutor Laura Adams said she didn’t seek a change in Pino’s bond status, meaning that Pino wasn’t required to post a bond or be booked in jail on the new charge.
Pino has been out of jail without posting a bond since August 2023, when he was initially charged with three careless boating misdemeanors in the crash.
After the Herald published a series of investigative articles detailing how investigators with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state agency that investigates fatal boating accidents, never interviewed key eyewitnesses, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reopened the case.
Last fall, prosecutors dropped the three careless boating charges and charged Pino with felony vessel homicide, which carries the maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. At a hearing in November, Adams said she wasn’t seeking a bond on the felony charge because Pino wasn’t a danger to the community or a flight risk. READ MORE: Pino surrenders, is booked on felony vessel homicide charge in crash that killed girl
At that hearing, Pino had to surrender himself in court as about 75 of his supporters — relatives and friends — watched the proceeding.
Also on Wednesday, Adams expressed frustration with a comment defense attorney Howard Srebnick made to the Miami Herald about Pino’s new charge. Srebnick said the new charge is “duplicative of existing allegations” and “fuels a false narrative that ignores the facts, and unfairly portrays Mr. Pino in the court of public opinion.”
The state, Adams said, can charge Pino with both crimes although he can’t be convicted of both charges. That’s because of the constitutional protection against double jeopardy, or being punished more than once for the same crime.
“The jury has the right to review each charge,” Adams said.
Tinkler Mendez warned the attorneys to focus on trying the case after a brief back-and-forth about media coverage.
“We are not trying this case in the media,” the judge said. “This case will be tried in this courtroom in front of a jury.”
The case is set for trial on June 1, 2026. The next hearing will be on Sept. 26.
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