Florida trial paused after man charged in fatal boat crash breaks down crying

MIAMI — Just over an hour into opening statements into the vessel homicide and manslaughter trial of George Pino, who crashed his boat into a Biscayne Bay channel marker almost four years ago, killing a teenage girl, the Doral real estate broker broke down in tears. His reaction suspended the proceedings so he could be medically evaluated.As Pino sobbed and shook, one of his daughters sat next to him, and Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez requested that the jury be removed from the courtroom. Pino stepped out to compose himself, but his lead attorney, Howard Srebnick, told the judge that he was concerned about his client’s health.“I don’t think he’s well,” Srebnick told Tinkler Mendez. Miami Fire Rescue would not comment on Pino’s condition, but Tinkler Mendez dismissed the jury for the day, with opening arguments scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. this morning.Srebnick was minutes into his opening statements when Pino began crying and breathing heavily.Pino, 54, is on trial for manslaughter and vessel homicide charges in the Sept. 4, 2022, crash. Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez was killed, and Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 21, another passenger, was left with physical and neurological disabilities. Both sides of the large courtroom were packed Monday, with Lucy’s loved ones sitting behind the prosecution table and Pino’s supporters behind the defense.Prosecutor Laura Adams had finished her opening statements, which consisted of more than 45 minutes of her laying out that Pino acted recklessly up to and when he slammed his 29-foot Robalo center console into a steel channel marker, sending himself and all 13 of his passengers into the water.“This is a case about responsibility and accountability, or, I should say, the lack of both by the defendant,” Adams told jurors.On the day of the crash, Pino was at the helm of a boat carrying his daughter’s teenage friends for her birthday. The skies were clear, and the girls were cheerful. They were hanging out on a sandbar on Elliott Key, and then returning to continue the festivities at a dinner at the Ocean Reef Club, a gated resort and community in north Key Largo.But the celebration ended, Adams said, when Pino struck a channel marker, plunging everyone into the water, leaving 17-year-old Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez critically injured. She died the next day in the hospital.Adams said that before the crash, Pino was on the wrong side of the channel and was going just under 50 mph when he smashed into the marker, which had a green neon sign on top of it. And after, he avoided accountability by lying to investigators about how the crash occurred, Adams said.Standing before the jury, Adams detailed all of what she considers Pino’s failures that Labor Day weekend: He failed to wear a kill switch to stop the engines. In the nine seconds before the crash, he was on a “collision course” with the marker driving on the wrong side of the channel.Adams also told jurors of the chaos after impact, when everyone was thrown overboard. She said Pino was hanging on the boat after the crash while witnesses who just arrived urged him to look under that vessel for Lucy, where he eventually found her.Adams detailed how GPS showed Pino traveled earlier that day at speeds around 30 mph, yet as fast as 43 mph in the seconds before impact, and up to 47 mph right before hitting the steel marker. That is very fast on the water, Adams said.“This was not a mere accident or momentarily lapse,” the prosecutor said. “Lucy is dead because the defendant failed to do the most basic things the rules on the water require.”Adams also told the jury that alcohol consumption is a factor in Pino’s reckless behavior because the girls, who were underage, were provided alcohol. Pino, she added, admitted drinking “two beers” that day.“There was alcohol. Lots of it stocked on that boat,” Adams said, alluding to the 61 empty and partially empty booze bottles and cans on Pino’s boat when cops salvaged it from the water the day after the crash.The prosecutor said she had a “silent witness” that is not swayed by money, privilege or power: Pino’s GPS.She showed jurors a map displaying the trajectory Pino took the day of the crash, recounting Pino’s route. Earlier that day, he took the girls out to a sandbar in Billy’s Point, where they swam and drank. The crash, she said, occurred when they were headed back to Ocean Reef for his daughter’s birthday dinner.“This was really one big happy party,” Adams said, showing jurors a photo of all the girls together. She pointed out Lucy, who was wearing a white bathing suit with flowers.The prosecutor also mentioned Pino told investigators that he crashed because the wake of another boat cause him to lose control. No witness, including people on his Robalo or in other boats behind him, saw what Adams called the “phantom boat.”“The GPS told the truth about what happened,” Adams said. “George Pino did not.”Standing at the lectern in front of the jury, Srebnick said the crash was a tragedy. Pino, he said, had seen the girls, who were all friends since they were young children, grow up together.“George would never ... put any of these girls’ lives in jeopardy,” the attorney said.Srebnick pointed out how there are no speed limits in the Cutter Bank channel — and how Pino’s actions did not violate the law.There also was no evidence that Pino was intoxicated, the attorney told the jury. He pointed out how the FWC ruled that alcohol was not a factor in the crash because the lead investigator determined Pino showed no signs of impairment.Lucy’s parents, Srebnick said, would not have let their daughter go with Pino if they believed he was drunk.Pino’s case is one of the most anticipated trials in South Florida due to his prominence in the community, the teens on his boat being students at well-known Catholic private schools and widespread criticism of investigators’ handling of the crash’s aftermath.Pino and his wife were celebrating their daughter’s 18th birthday on Elliott Key on the day of the incident. Their daughter and 11 of her friends, including Katy and Lucy, were on the boat. They were headed to have dinner at Ocean Reef, where the Pinos were members at the time.Puig, a soccer standout with Division I college prospects, is still regaining basic motor skills. Several other girls were injured but have recovered.After a year-long investigation, the FWC, the state agency that investigates boat crashes, recommended three misdemeanor charges. Had Pino pleaded guilty to those counts, he would have faced at most up to 60 days in a county jail.But following a series of Miami Herald articles exposing flaws in the investigation, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reexamined the case. In late 2024, prosecutors charged Pino with vessel homicide, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.Then, last August, prosecutors charged Pino with another second-degree felony: manslaughter, which also carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. That charge came after prosecutors interviewed the girls who were on the boat, some of whom testified about the amount of alcohol flowing on the vessel.