‘Just another boating accident.' FWC officer says why body cam was deleted in Pino crash
The state police officer whose body camera footage was deleted from the scene of a boat crash that killed a 17-year-old girl said he considered it 'just another boating accident' and thus didn't take steps to preserve the video for a criminal investigation, according to newly filed court records.
Yet when he filed his footage, the lead investigators at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were already discussing criminal charges against George Pino, the boat's operator.
FWC Officer Keith Hernandez also contradicted the sworn statement of another FWC officer on the scene, who said Pino had bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol and had a 'flustered demeanor.'
Hernandez, in a deposition obtained Monday by the Herald, said he didn't notice any signs of Pino being drunk. That differs from what FWC officer Julien Gazzola said in his deposition last month.
Both Hernandez and Gazzola's body camera footage from the crash scene was deleted after they classified the footage 'incidental,' not criminal, when they uploaded it into the FWC's system. 'Incidental' footage is automatically deleted after 90 days, according to the FWC's policy.
At the time Hernandez uploaded his footage, all 14 people on Pino's 29-foot Robalo were injured after Pino slammed into a fixed channel marker in Biscayne Bay, causing the boat to capsize. Three of the 12 teenage girls on the boat were found unconscious in the water. Pino and his wife had invited the girls on the boat outing to celebrate the 18th birthday of their daughter, Cecilia.
One girl, 17-year-old Luciana 'Lucy' Fernandez, died the next day in the hospital. Her classmate at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, Katerina 'Katy' Puig, now 19, was left with permanent injuries and is still relearning to walk. The third unconscious girl, then 16-year-old Isabella Rodriguez, who suffered a head injury and brain bleed, has since recovered.
Awaiting trial on felony charge
Pino is now awaiting trial on a felony vessel homicide charge, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, if there's a conviction. He was initially charged with only three misdemeanor counts of careless boating, which carried a sentence of 60 days in jail.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office upped the charge to a felony after a series of Miami Herald articles detailed a flawed investigation from the beginning.
READ MORE: How investigators, prosecutors bungled probe into boat crash that killed teen girl
The smell test
Hernandez interacted with Pino on the night of the crash. Lead FWC investigator William Thompson spoke to Hernandez as he and Pino were on boat heading to a triage center set up on Elliott Key, where Thompson eventually questioned Pino that night.
As the boat pulled away from Thompson's vessel, Thompson yelled toward Hernandez, 'Keith Hernandez!' He then tells him quietly, 'Smell,' indicating he wanted Hernandez to smell Pino for alcohol.
Hernandez was escorting Pino to the ranger station, where the injured passengers were taken. While Pino received medical attention from paramedics, Pino 'stated that he had 2 beers total for the day' and recounted the events leading up to the crash, according to Hernandez's supplemental report.
Hernandez was asked during his deposition if he noticed Pino showing signs of impairment.
'Did Mr. Pino have an odor of alcohol that you noticed?' Mark Shapiro, an attorney for Pino, asked Hernandez, the court records show.
'Not that I noticed,' he replied.
'Did you notice if Mr. Pino had bloodshot eyes?'
'Not that I saw,' he said.
READ MORE: Pino smelled of alcohol, had 'bloodshot eyes' after deadly boat crash, FWC cop says
The FWC didn't give Pino a sobriety test the night of the Sept. 4, 2022, crash, despite his admission to officers that he had '2 beers' that day.
The FWC said it didn't have probable cause to get a warrant to force Pino to take a sobriety test that night. But training manuals from both the FWC and State Attorney's Office list significant injuries and deaths as probable cause for a blood draw in a sobriety test, the Herald's investigation found.
The next day, the FWC found 61 empty booze bottles and cans on the boat, which had been carrying 12 underage girls. Pino's defense attorney, Howard Srebnick, said the empty containers stemmed from five boats tied up that day on Elliott Key.
With Hernandez and Gazzola's body camera footage deleted, there is no video evidence to corroborate what either officer said in their sworn statements.
FWC changes its story about deleted footage
When the Herald reported last week that Hernandez's footage was also deleted, the FWC said it was because of 'human error' on both officers' parts. A day after the Herald published its story, the FWC changed its position, saying the agency's policy on body-worn cameras 'lacks clear guidance for officers who are present on the scene in a supporting role, rather than as primary investigators or arresting officers.'
'The policy is now under revision to provide clearer direction, particularly regarding supervisory review and categorization expectations in such scenarios,' FWC spokeswoman Ashlee Sklute said Friday.
The FWC's record-retention policy says body camera footage related to misdemeanor charges must be stored for five years and a felony charge for 13 years, according to FWC records obtained by the Herald through public records requests.
READ MORE: Why was officers' body cam video deleted in Pino boat-crash case? FWC blames its unclear policy
What remains unclear is why the officers were labeling their footage as if the crash were a minor incident when FWC investigators were mulling charging Pino with felony reckless boating just days after the crash, according to the Herald's investigation into the crash.
Four days after the crash, the FWC and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office were contemplating misdemeanor criminal charges for Pino, according to a text conversation between Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and FWC Lt. Col. Alfredo Escanio, the deputy director of the south region, according to records the Herald obtained through a public records request.
The FWC has not responded to questions asking why the lead investigators on the case didn't relabel the footage to retain it as evidence.
Lt. Daniel Miranda, the immediate supervisor of the lead investigator, William Thompson, told Pino's attorney in March in a sworn statement that he and Thompson both thought Pino was driving recklessly when he rode on the wrong side of the wide channel, did not swerve before hitting the marker and slammed into the concrete marker at nearly 50 mph.
'You know, we felt that his actions constituted a reckless operation of the vessel,' Miranda said.
Miranda deferred to Thompson's conclusion in his final report, which stated: 'Pino's actions did not constitute as reckless operation,' only careless boating, which led to the initial misdemeanor charges. Reckless boating would be a felony.
In the end, Miranda added, the decision on the severity of the charges came down to the State Attorney's Office, and Assistant State Attorney Ruben Scolavino told the FWC the evidence investigators had wasn't strong enough to warrant a felony.
'We don't want anything like this to happen to anyone, you know. This accident happened. It killed, you know, some young ladies. And obviously, you know, we don't want any of this to happen, but we have our due diligence to do our work and to do an investigative report,' Miranda said in his sworn statement. 'So we felt as investigators that this had reached a level of a felony charge for a vessel homicide. There was a discussion with the state attorney, and they felt different.'
Thompson didn't respond to questions from the Herald Tuesday, but Miranda stressed the final decision was up to the State Attorney's Office, which declined to comment about the case.
'We felt that we had this, but in discussions with the state attorney, you know, they felt that we weren't there yet. Or we weren't there,' Miranda said.
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