George Pino Returns To Court As Witness Testimony Begins

The second day of George Pino’s trial revealed how the 2022 boat crash that killed 17-year-old Lucia “Lucy” Fernandez and injured ten others shattered a once-close-knit group of affluent Miami professionals and their families.

On Tuesday morning, Miami-Dade prosecutor Laura Adams called Andres “Andy” Fernandez, Lucy’s father, as the state’s first witness against Pino.

Pino is charged with manslaughter and vessel homicide for allegedly causing the teen’s death when his 29-foot Robalo Center Console collided into a channel marker in the Keys on Labor Day Weekend four years ago. The crash threw all 14 occupants into the water and caused the boat to capsize.

The group included Pino, his wife Cecilia “Ceci” Pino, their daughter Cecilia “Little Ceci” Pino, Lucy and 10 other teen girls, including Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 21, who sustained debilitating physical injuries. Her parents have a pending civil lawsuit against George and Cecilia Pino.

Pino, CEO of Doral-based State Street Realty, is a well known South Florida commercial broker who won broker of the year awards from the Commercial Real Estate Development Association five times during his 30-plus career. His wife is a sales associate and community outreach director for State Street.

Andres Fernandez, a partner with Miami law firm Holland & Knight who co-leads the firm’s banking regulations team, took the stand after Pino’s defense lawyer Howard Srebnick resumed his opening statement. On Monday, Miami-Dade Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez paused the proceedings and sent jurors home after Pino had an emotional breakdown.

Fernandez told jurors that he’s known George Pino’s wife since they were in the second grade. He met Pino when she began dating the commercial broker, and was a guest at their wedding in 2001. Lucy and Little Ceci, who both were seniors at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy at the time of the crash, had been friends since early childhood.

Fernandez and his wife, Lucy’s mom Melissa Fernandez, were at Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo that weekend, at the same time their daughter had joined the Pinos and their teen friends to celebrate Little Ceci’s 18th birthday.

“I got a call or text from Lucy saying that she missed us and that she wants to see us,” Fernandez recalled. “I went over to the pickleball courts and she gave me a super warm hug.”

At his daughter’s request, he and his wife also took their boat out to a sandbar later that afternoon where Pino had taken the girls so that they could spend some more time with Lucy. “It was a beautiful afternoon,” Fernandez testified. “People were floating in the water. Everybody was having a nice time.”

He described the gathering as a “wholesome event,” but acknowledged that the adults and the teens were drinking alcohol. Fernandez said he drank rum with club soda that he had poured into a personal cup, and that he saw Pino drinking a beer. He also said that he didn’t believe Pino was impaired.

In the crash’s aftermath, Pino told investigators he drank two beers. Authorities found 61 empty or partially empty bottles of alcohol found on Pino’s boat when it was pulled out of the water. Pino’s wife told authorities that she had gathered the bottles from other boaters partying with them to avoid littering.

Fernandez testified that he and his wife left the sandbar before Pino because he had to get back to Ocean Reef to watch a football game with his father. By the time they arrived back at Key Largo, they found out that Pino had crashed. They headed back out to Biscayne Bay.

“My wife and I jumped back into our boat to retrace our steps and find out what is going on and try to find Lucy,” Fernandez said, adding that when they arrived at the crash scene, “we couldn’t see where Lucy [was].”

Unable to track down their daughter, the couple returned to Ocean Reef and subsequently learned that one of the girls had been transported to Kendall Medical Regional Center in south Miami-Dade County.

They showed hospital staff a photo of Lucy, but that she could not be identified “because she is in bad shape,” Fernandez said. Their daughter was identified by a birthmark and a necklace with her birthdate on it, he said, choking up and wiping away tears.

“It was horrific,” Fernandez said. “A parents’ worst nightmare … She passed the next morning at 6:30 a.m.”

Jurors also heard from Camila Alvarez and Carolina Monterrey, two friends of Little Ceci who were on the boat. Alvarez, now 21, said she “felt a jolting feeling” when the boat crashed. She jumped into the water when the boat began to capsize and began to help some of the other girls, including helping Cecilia Pino put one of the injured teens on a boat cushion to help keep her afloat.

She said she saw Pino holding on to the boat with his eyes closed, and at one point thought he was dead. Alvarez also said she heard some of her friends calling out for Lucy, who was trapped underneath the wreck.

Monterrey testified that she was sitting in the front of the boat but she was not looking in the direction where the channel marker was. She did not feel any jolts or any movements, and she could not remember if there was a loud bang, Monterrey said. She was next to Pino, who told her to jump.

During his opening statement, Srebnick sought to downplay the prosecutor’s claim that Pino initially lied to investigators by blaming a “phantom boat” for causing him to lose control of the boat and crash. No witnesses — including passengers aboard his Robalo or boaters who came to assist the crash victims — reported seeing any such boat.

Srebnick argued that Pino’s account was shaped by a concussion he sustained in the collision. The injury, he said, led Pino to form a “false memory” of the accident.

Srebnick acknowledged that Pino may have been distracted in the seconds leading up to the crash, when the boat struck a steel channel marker. But distraction, he emphasized, does not meet the legal threshold for recklessness.

“Mr. Pino was not thrill-seeking. He was not speeding. He was not doing doughnuts. He was not racing any other boats,” Srebnick told jurors. “This was, pure and simple, an accident.”

Pino was navigating a familiar route through Cutter Bank on a “well-built boat” he had operated there multiple times before, his lawyer explained. About nine seconds before impact, Srebnick said, Pino briefly “lost situational awareness.”

As Srebnick addressed the jury, Pino sat with his eyes closed, appearing emotional, and shook his head.

While acknowledging that Pino was traveling at a high rate of speed and on the wrong side of the channel, Srebnick argued neither factor constitutes a violation of law.