Commercial real estate broker George Pino now faces a felony homicide charge in the deadly Biscayne Bay boat crash that killed a 17-year-old girl and severely injured her classmate.
Pino, president of Doral-based State Street Realty, was steering the boat with 14 occupants, including his wife, daughter and 11 other teenage girls when the craft crashed into a concrete channel marker on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend in 2022. Prosecutors initially brought careless boating misdemeanor charges against Pino last year, and now swapped them for a felony charge after a key witness spoke out, the Miami Herald reported.
Pino, 54, faces a vessel homicide/operate in reckless manner charge, which has a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Pino’s vessel, which was going about 50 miles per hour, crashed in the Cutter Bank area, propelling all passengers in the water, and killing Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, a 17-year-old Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior. Katerina Puig, a Lourdes soccer team captain at the time who has since graduated, suffered a traumatic brain injury. Pino had said the wake from another boat led him to lose control, though evidence and eyewitnesses did not corroborate this, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report.
Pino’s attorney, Howard Srebnick, said he’s “dismayed” at the “surprise decision” by prosecutors to file the felony charge.
“This was an accident, not a crime, much less a felony,” Srebnick said in a statement.
The new charge came after Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter Matthew Smiley, a witness of the crash, came forward to prosecutors, saying Pino appeared intoxicated shortly after the crash.
Last year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced they conducted a thorough investigation. But reports in the Miami Herald later poked holes in the investigation, revealing that three other witnesses had provided their phone numbers to investigators, but were never contacted.
Pino, who had told an officer at the scene “I had two beers,” also wasn’t given a sobriety test.
“Officers on the scene of the crash determined that Pino was not intoxicated. Pino did not exceed any posted speed limit [and] had the required number of Coast Guard-approved life preservers on board the vessel,” Srebnick said.
The Puig family, who were angered at the misdemeanor charges and questioned the thoroughness of the investigation, filed a civil lawsuit last year against Pino and his wife, Cecilia Pino. It led to a $16 million court judgment against Cecilia Pino and a sealed settlement with Pino.
Pino has more than 26 years of experience in real estate brokerage, property management and development, according to State Street’s website. He has closed $1.75 billion in sales and over 26 million square feet in leasing deals throughout his career. Cecilia Pino also is an executive at State Street.
––– Lidia Dinkova
Editor’s note: This story was updated with a statement from George Pino’s attorney.