George Pino’s wife, more girls on boat testify for defense in deadly crash trial

Two of the girls who were on the boat piloted by Doral real estate broker George Pino when it crashed, killing a 17-year-old girl, described the moments before Pino slammed into a channel marker in Biscayne Bay, saying the ride was like countless others they had been on as frequent boaters.

“It felt like nothing out of the ordinary,” Claudia Portocarrero, 21, told Pino’s defense attorney Jeanelle Gomez, during Tuesday’s trial.

George Pino’s wife Cecilia Pino also testified, recounting the day of the crash — and how it has impacted Pino.

She choked up when defense attorney Edward Armellino showed her photos of the teen girls taken before the crash.

“We’ve loved those girls since they were little,” she said.

Before the defense began presenting witnesses, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez denied Pino’s motion for judgment of acquittal, which allows a judge to find a defendant not guilty without sending the case to a jury. Attorney Howard Srebnick made the motion Monday evening after prosecutors rested their case.

READ MORE: State rests in George Pino’s boat-crash trial after testimony about Lucy’s death

Such a motion is rarely granted and requires a judge to find that no rational jury could find the defendant guilty.

Pino, 54, is on trial on charges of manslaughter and vessel homicide in the Sept. 4, 2022, boat crash in Biscayne Bay. Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, 17, was killed, and Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 21, another passenger, was left with physical and neurological disabilities. Dozens of Lucy’s loved ones and Pino’s supporters tightly packed both sides of the large courtroom.

Pino was taking his wife, Cecilia, their daughter and 11 of his daughter’s friends back to Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo that night from an afternoon outing on Elliott Key. The outing was to celebrate the daughter’s 18th birthday; there was a dinner planned at Ocean Reef at 9 p.m.

More girls on the boat testify

Portocarrero, who said she is a cousin of the Pinos, testified that she had consumed alcohol, including a seltzer and beer, and was buzzed. Natalia Reed, 21, also said she had two or three alcoholic seltzers and felt buzzed while out on the sandbar. At the time of the crash, Portocarrero and Reed were 17, under the legal drinking age of 21.

The day after the crash, officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state agency that investigates boating accidents, pulled the boat from the bay, and it contained 61 empty and partially empty booze bottles and cans. All the girls on the boat were underage. Pino has said the bottles and cans stemmed from the trash of six boats tied up at the sandbar.

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

Both Portocarrero and Reed, who grew up with Pino’s daughter, said they didn’t see Pino drinking — and that he didn’t seem intoxicated.

Portocarrero said that when she opened her eyes, she saw Pino, who she believed to be dead because blood was gushing out of his head. Reed, too, witnessed Pino’s injuries but added that she later saw him gripping onto the boat with his hands.

When asked by prosecutor Laura Adams, Portocarrero testified that there was nothing in Pino’s line of sight that would have blocked his vision moments before the crash. She teared up on the stand when Adams showed her a photo of Lucy.

Pino’s wife takes the stand

Pino’s wife Cecilia told jurors she and her husband, whom she has been married to for 25 years, saw the girls on the boat grow up as their two daughters attended the same elementary school, Epiphany Catholic School, as many of the girls. (She also said she was close friends with Lucy’s father Andres Fernandez since they, too, attended elementary school at Epiphany.)

Cecilia Pino said she and her husband have been members of Ocean Reef since 2004 and spent the summers there. The night before the crash, nine of the girls stayed at a house the Pinos rented on Ocean Reef.

The next day, she said, they went out to hang out at the sandbar. Cecilia Pino said she made sandwiches and brought chips — and that Pino packed the drinks, including alcoholic beverages.

Cecilia Pino said she had, at most, two drinks and did not feel impaired that day. She said she didn’t notice if Pino had been drinking because she was hanging out with other women at the sandbar. Pino, she said, did not appear to be drunk or buzzed. If he had been, she said, she would not have let him pilot the vessel.

“I would never put myself or any of those girls at risk,” Cecilia Pino said.

Recounting the moments before the crash, Cecilia Pino said she was on her phone, trying to send videos to the girls’ mothers. After the impact, water started gushing into the boat, and she said she told the girls to jump into the bay.

Cecilia Pino also testified that she did not see her husband until she got on another vessel because she was “just thinking of the girls.” The crash, she said, has affected her husband.

“George after the accident was very different,” she said, adding that he was “very depressed.”

Cecilia Pino was also questioned by both the defense and prosecution about a statement she made in a court filing in a civil suit brought by the Puig family. In the document, signed under penalty of perjury, Cecilia Pino said Pino crashed because the wake of another boat caused him to lose control.

No witness, including the passengers on Pino’s 29-foot Robalo or in other boats behind him, saw what Adams has called the “phantom boat.”

When asked by Armellino about the filing, Cecilia Pino said she did not know what happened in the crash but wrote that because it’s “what my husband told me.” But Adams grilled Cecilia Pino about her responses in the document, questioning why she would repeat her husband’s claim. Cecilia Pino then said her attorney Andrew Mescolotto wrote the response. Mescolotto is scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

Before finishing her questioning, Adams also showed jurors photos of the Pino family taken in December 2022. Pino was smiling in the images. Cecilia Pino testified that one of the photos was taken on a trip to the Florida Panhandle and the other for their daughter’s graduation.

Other boaters response to crash site

On the stand, Hamlet Rodriguez said he was on the water with his wife when he encountered the capsized vessel. He testified that his wife shouted, “Look under the boat. Look under the boat.”

Pino, who was hanging onto the boat, swam under the vessel, he said. Hamlet Rodriguez added that he dived in and helped Pino retrieve Lucy.

David Rodriguez, who said he was among the first boaters to arrive that day, testified that he operated his cousin’s boat at 70 mph, which was almost the top speed, to help the occupants of the capsized vessel.

When he arrived to the scene, David Rodriguez said he interacted with Pino and helped rescue him. He said he did not smell alcohol or observe Pino being impaired, despite initially suspecting the crash was likely due to alcohol consumption.

On Monday, the state rested after calling a former member of the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office to testify about the extent of Lucy’s injuries. Dr. David Fintan Garavan said Lucy’s official cause of death was drowning. But the girl, he said, also suffered significant blunt force trauma from the impact of the boat crashing into the steel channel marker.

Among the last witnesses prosecutors called was boating expert Lt. Paul Alber, who testified that Pino traveled the length of two football fields — going 47 mph — in the nine seconds before the crash.

Alber walked jurors through Pino’s trajectory on the day of the crash in a series of maps created from GPS data. Alber inspected Pino’s Robalo and said he was contacted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the lead investigating agency, the day after the crash to analyze the boat’s GPS.

Alber was recalled to the stand by the defense Tuesday. Srebnick peppered Alber with questions about how the channel does not have posted speed limits and how the law does not require that passengers on the boat wear life jackets.

This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 10:47 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.