Man in middle of Sergio Pino murder-for-hire plot gets about 20 years in prison

A man in the middle of a plot to kill the wife of Miami-Dade developer Sergio Pino was sentenced Monday to about 20 years in prison — punishment mostly based on a firearm used by an associate to threaten Pino’s estranged wife and the defendant’s own criminal history.

Avery Bivins, 37, may eventually receive a significant sentence reduction reflecting his critical assistance in the FBI investigation last summer. His undercover cooperation came just before the wealthy developer fatally shot himself as agents closed in to arrest him at his waterfront home in Coral Gables. Any recommendation to decrease his sentence would be up to the federal prosecutors in Miami.

Bivins is the first of nine defendants to be sentenced in the Pino murder-for-hire case, with six having pleaded guilty so far in Miami federal court and another expected to do so on Friday. Unless they also cut plea deals, the remaining two defendants are likely to go to trial next year.

In April, Bivins pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire conspiracy, stalking and brandishing a firearm as part of attempts to kill Tatiana Pino, including an incident where another man in his crew pointed a gun at the wife and then at her adult daughter in the driveway of their Pinecrest home. The conspiracy charge carried up to life in prison, and the firearm offense imposed a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years.

Bivins’ defense attorney, Humberto Dominguez, argued that he should receive some benefit under federal sentencing guidelines because he was a “youthful offender” at 18 when had committed his first crimes — nearly two decades before he was recruited into the Pino plot to kill his wife.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles said he recognized that Bivins was only 18 when was previously convicted of robbery and attempted murder, but the defendant still qualified as a “career offender” because of his prior record, which boosted his punishment by several years.

“If this were any other case, the argument would be stronger,” Gayles said. “This is a big case we’re talking about.”

“I realize this is a serious case, but [Bivins] had nothing to do with the gun” used to threaten Pino’s wife, Dominguez told Gayles. “He was a middle man who was trying to make some money.”

But prosecutor Abbie Waxman strongly disagreed.

“This defendant was contacted by another defendant and put the act in motion by bringing in others” into the conspiracy to kill Pino’s wife, said Waxman, who is handling the case with prosecutor Brian Dobbins. “He put the ball in motion.”

Bivins, whose father and other relatives attended the court hearing, said little at his sentencing, apologizing “to the victims and my family.”

Contentious divorce

Pino, 67, had been going through a bitter divorce with his wife, Tatiana, who stood to inherit half of his empire — valued at more than $100 million. 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 at the time of his death.

Since the attempts on her life and her husband’s death, Tatiana, 56, has taken over as CEO of Sergio’s business, Century Homebuilders Group. But she’s still locked in a probate battle with his brother and a few former executives of the company.

If Pino had not killed himself on the morning of July 16, 2024, as FBI agents swarmed his Cocoplum 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 was accused of enlisting three other men — Michael Jose Dulfo, Jerren Keith Howard and Edner Etienne — for his crew in the alleged plot targeting Pino’s wife.

Rammed truck backwards in wife’s driveway

The group was accused of coordinating a couple of bizarre attacks to threaten and harm Tatiana in 2023. That August, 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. He then sped away.

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 court records.

In the first group, all but Howard pleaded guilty to various charges and await sentencing. Howard is scheduled to change his plea to guilty on Friday, records show.

Another crew recruited

In the second part, Pino recruited a former felon who was working as a roofer on his Cocoplum home last year. Fausto Villar enlisted another ex-felon, Bivins, whom he knew from state prison, to help carry out the murder-for-hire scheme, according to the FBI.

Villar had served six years on charges involving armed robbery, while Bivins had done 12 years on charges related to drug trafficking, theft and attempted murder.

After Villar and Bivins joined forces, the latter recruited a friend, Clementa Johnson, who in turn brought in his cousin, Vernon Green.

On June 23, 2024, Tatiana Pino drove to church in Kendall. Johnson tailed her from Calvary Church to her home that Sunday morning.

Ten miles away, in Pinecrest, another man, Green, Johnson’s cousin, was parked in a truck outside her house, waiting for her return, according to court records. As Tatiana pulled into her driveway, Green exited his truck and ran toward her, brandishing a gun. Tatiana slammed the horn and floored the gas pedal, roaring into her backyard.

During the commotion, Pino’s adult daughter, Alessandra, 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, court records show.

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.

But when the attempt to end his wife’s life failed, Pino ran out of moves.

Bivins flips on Villar

FBI agents learned Bivins knew Pino’s roofer, 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 court records.

Villar “enlisted Bivins to gather a group for the job,” which included contacting his friend, Johnson, to execute the hit on Pino’s wife, the documents say. Johnson then brought in his cousin, Green, the gunman who assaulted Tatiana Pino outside her home, according to Green’s plea agreement.

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, according to FBI affidavits filed with criminal complaints. “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,” the documents say. “Villar also provided two cash payments of $30,000 and $45,000 up front during two separate meetings.”

Bivins would end up betraying Villar when FBI agents persuaded him to call the roofer on July 15, 2024, 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 FBI 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 wealthy developer the following day, July 16, 2024, when Pino killed himself with a gun in his home rather than surrender to agents.

READ MORE: Miami developer Sergio Pino found dead amid FBI ‘murder for hire’ investigation

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.

In the second group, all but Johnson pleaded guilty to the main conspiracy charge and other counts. A fifth associate, Diori Barnard, was accused of providing back-up support and faces trial next March with him.

Pino’s end game

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, according to authorities.

Villar 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 court proceeding between her and Pino,” according to court records.

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.