Miami-Dade prosecutors are escalating their case against real estate broker George Pino, 54, with a new manslaughter charge following a 2022 Labor Day boating accident that resulted in the death of a teen and left another with grave injuries, court records show. This comes atop an existing vessel homicide charge that Pino faces due to the incident which occurred on Sept. 4, 2022, during which 17-year-old Luciana "Lucy" Fernandez lost her life and her classmate, Katerina "Katy" Puig, now 20, was left seriously hurt and wheelchair-bound, reported CBS Miami.
According to details from the Miami Herald, this second charge attributes to Pino "intentionally committed an act or acts, and/or acted with culpable negligence" surrounding Fernandez's death, while new witness statements and allegations of alcohol consumption by minors have shed light on the circumstances leading to the tragedy despite Pino's daughter, newly 18 at the time, having invited the 11 friends for a birthday celebration, the boat tipped over tossing all 14 passengers overboard and since then, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission discovered empty alcohol bottles on the vessel, but even with Pino admitting to having consumed two beers, FWC officers failed to conduct a sobriety test in the accident's immediate wake, as reported by CBS Miami.
The case has intensified criticisms of the FWC's approach to the investigation especially after it surfaced that body camera footage by officers at the scene was marked 'incidental' and eventually deleted post a routine retention period, a move that is legal under current guidelines but has prompted policy reevaluation, this came from a statement by an FWD spokesperson to Local 10 News, as the entire situation reflects a broader question on the agency's efficiency and thoroughness in law enforcement, according to the report by Local 10 News.
Howard Srebnick, Pino's attorney, contends with the prosecutors' stance, describing the new charge as "duplicative" of previous allegations and lacking additional evidence to support it, reiterating that none of the passengers identified Mr. Pino's operation of the vessel as negligent or reckless, and asserting that he was not speeding nor driving erratically, in a statement obtained by Local 10 News, Srebnick emphasized: “The newly-filed charge—nearly three years after the crash and no additional evidence to support it—is duplicative of existing allegations. None of passengers on the boat have described Mr. Pino as having operated the vessel negligently, much less recklessly. He was not speeding nor driving erratically. We will move to dismiss this unwarranted, redundant accusation that does not bring clarity or justice; it only deepens public misunderstanding, fuels a false narrative that ignores the facts, and unfairly portrays Mr. Pino in the court of public opinion. As we have said all along, this was a tragic accident, not a crime.”
