Florida real estate mogul hit with homicide charge in 2022 boat crash that killed teen, permanently disabled another
A Florida real estate mogul has been slapped with a felony homicide charge for a boat crash that killed a teen as newly released bodycam footage captured the moment he admitted that he had “two beers” while operating the vessel.
Miami-Dade prosecutors charged George Pino with vessel homicide/operating in a reckless manner on Thursday in connection to the fatal boat wreck over Labor Day weekend in 2022, according to Local10.
Pino, 52, was operating his 29-foot Robalo boat with 14 passengers, including several teens, for his daughter’s 18th birthday on Sept. 4, 2022, when he struck a channel marker near Boca Chita Key — an island north of the upper Florida Keys.
The force of the crash launched all the passengers into the water and capsized the boat.
The wreck killed 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez and left 18-year-old soccer star Katerina Puig with a traumatic brain injury and disabled for life.
The girls were both students at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami.
Another teen was also injured, but their name was not released.
Body cam footage obtained by NBC 6 on Thursday shows Pino speaking with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers following the fatal crash.
The real estate mogul claimed to officers that he was steering the boat through the channel when another boat caused a wave, causing him to lose control of the vessel.
He said two of the girls were “sitting in the back seat of the boat,” “five or six” others at the front, and his wife in the middle when the boat “approached the waves head-first.”
“I was looking at the girls just to make sure they were ok because they were sitting on the back, and the next thing I know I hit the wave and I tried to swing and the right side of the boat, that would be the left side of the boat, hit the pylon,” Pino told the officers.
The prominent real estate developer declined to have his blood drawn voluntarily for alcohol and refused a breathalyzer test at the scene of the crash.
“No, I had two beers,” Pino told the officers.
In Florida, the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) limit for boaters over 21 years old is 0.08%.
Pino assured them he felt “perfect in the way that my mind was” but was stunned by what happened.
He added that he’d “been operating boats forever” and had “done that ride 1,000 times.”
The FWC said that Pino had “61 empty alcoholic bottles and cans, one empty champagne bottle, and a half-consumed bottle of liquor” on his vessel, according to an incident report obtained by NBC 6.
Investigators did not suspect the real estate broker was intoxicated while captaining the vessel.
At the time, Pino was charged with three misdemeanors for operating the boat when it collided with a channel marker.
The Puig family also accused Pino of speeding during the crash and that he and his wife, Cecilia, supplied the teens with alcohol throughout the day, according to Local10.
A judge ordered the Pino’s to pay Puig’s family $16 million in a lawsuit settlement in May.
Joel Denaro, the attorney representing Fernandez’s family, said the new charges brought against Pino on Thursday came after prosecutors re-evaluated the case and a Miami-Dade firefighter who responded to the boat crash claimed alcohol was a factor in the crash.
Pino could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.
