Experts to inspect George Pino's boat. Trial for fatal vessel crash planned for July
The 29-foot boat involved in a deadly 2022 Labor Day weekend crash that killed an Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior and permanently disabled her classmate is the latest focus in the felony case against Miami-Dade real estate broker George Pino.
Both Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office prosecutors and Pino's defense attorneys plan to have experts inspect the Robalo center console early next month.
'The state has retained an accident reconstructionist as well as a marine mechanic expert. They are going to be present for the inspection,' Assistant State Attorney Laura Adams said during a status hearing on the case at the Miami-Dade County courthouse Friday morning.
On Sept. 4, 2022, George Pino was operating the boat through a channel in Biscayne Bay, heading back to Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo from an outing celebrating his daughter's 18th birthday on Elliott Key. His wife, Cecilia, and 11 of his daughter's friends were on the vessel when Pino slammed it into a fixed channel marker at a high rate of speed, ejecting and injuring everyone on board.
READ MORE: How investigators, prosecutors bungled probe into boat crash that killed teen girl
After a nearly year-long investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state police agency that investigates boat crashes, prosecutors in August 2023 charged Pino with three misdemeanor counts of careless boating. The minor charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 60 days in jail, outraged the families of Luciana Fernandez — who died from her injuries in the hospital the day after the crash at the age of 17 — and of Katerina Puig, now 19, a standout soccer player who was left with a lifetime of disabilities.
After a series of articles by the Miami Herald showing police and prosecutors never followed up with key eyewitnesses, a new witness approached prosecutors, a Miami-Dade firefighter who fished Pino out of the water that day, who told them that, in his opinion, Pino showed signs he had been drinking.
READ MORE: Prosecutors didn't talk to eyewitness before filing misdemeanor charges in deadly boat crash
This prompted the State Attorney's Office in late October to re-open its investigation and drop the misdemeanor counts and charge Pino — president of State Street Realty in Doral — with felony vessel homicide, a form of manslaughter in which a person kills another due to the reckless operation of a boat. He now faces 15 years in prison if convicted.
Another controversy surrounding the first investigations by the FWC and State Attorney's Office is that alcohol was immediately ruled out despite Pino telling police that night that he had 'two beers' prior to the crash, and that investigators found more than 60 empty containers of various forms of alcohol on board his boat when they pulled it from the water the next day.
READ MORE: 61 booze containers on crashed boat in Keys — and parents outraged over minor charges
Pino, 54, pleaded not guilty to both the misdemeanor counts and now to the felony counts, maintaining — despite contrary statements from witnesses and photographic evidence from on the water that day — that a larger boat traveling in the opposite direction threw a wake that caused him to lose control of his Robalo.
Pino's attorney, Howard Srebnick, issued a statement Friday saying prosecutors have yet to provide evidence or witnesses supporting elevating the case to a felony.
'This month we will continue to engage key prosecution witnesses through depositions and are confident that none of the State's witnesses will offer any evidence that this tragedy was anything more than a horrible accident, not a crime,' Srebnick said.
A trial is scheduled for July.
Mark Shapiro, another attorney for Pino, told Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez Friday that his team is set to begin taking depositions from witnesses, including police officers who responded to the scene that day, and the depositions are expected to continue through March.
Both sides plan to inspect the boat in early March. The vessel is parked, wrapped in plastic, at FWC's North Miami Beach headquarters, Adams said, adding it 'sustained massive damage' in the crash.
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