Pino’s attorneys stress fatal boat crash was an accident, not a crime

Crime admin June 9, 2026 0 Comments

Pino’s attorneys stress fatal boat crash was an accident, not a crime

When George Pino crashed his boat Into a steel channel marker, killing a teen girl, he was distracted for unknown reasons, one of his attorneys told jurors.

But that, attorney Howard Srebnick said, does not amount to recklessness.

“Mr. Pino was not thrill-seeking. He was not speeding. He was not doing doughnuts. He was not racing any other boats,” Srebnick said during opening statements. “This was, pure and simple, an accident.”

Srebnick concluded his speech to the jury on Tuesday morning after Pino on Monday caused the trial to be paused because he sobbed and breathed heavily. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez ordered the jury removed from the courtroom.

Miami Fire Rescue did not comment on Pino’s condition. After walking into court on Tuesday, Pino told his defense team he was “feeling good this morning. I got a good night’s rest.”

READ MORE: After prosecutor lays out boat crash case, George Pino causes trial to pause

Pino, 54, is on trial on charges of manslaughter and vessel homicide 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. Dozens of Lucy’s loved ones and Pino’s supporters tightly packed both sides of the large courtroom.

Minutes before Monday’s interruption, 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 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.”

Crash was not a crime: defense

Standing at the lectern in front of the jury on Tuesday, Srebnick said that Sunday in 2022 was “an ideal day for boating.” The seas were calm, and there was no wind or rain. Pino and his wife were celebrating their daughter’s 18th birthday with 11 of her friends on the boat.

Pino had made the voyage through Cutter Bank several times on the “well-built boat,” Srebnick said. But that day, Pino got distracted nine seconds before he slammed his boat into the steel channel marker.

That showed Pino momentarily “lost situational awareness,” but does not show he acted recklessly or was culpably negligent, the attorney said. As Srebnick addressed the jury, Pino closed his eyes, as if crying, and shook his head.

“But even so, somebody died,” Srebnick said. “Mr. Pino will have to live with that.”

Although Pino was traveling fast and on the wrong side of the channel, Srebnick countered that neither is illegal. Pino, Srebnick added, also had the required number of life preservers, and the boat was not overloaded.

During his opening, Srebnick focused on why Pino told investigators he crashed because the wake of another boat caused him to lose control. No witness, including people on his Robalo or in other boats behind him, saw what the prosecutor previously called the “phantom boat.”

Pino’s recollection of the crash, Srebnick said, was affected by a traumatic brain injury that he sustained. The head injury caused Pino to have “a false memory” about how the crash unfolded that he “believed to be true,” Srebnick said.

While out at Elliot Key before the crash, the adults and some of the children on the boat consumed alcohol, Srebnick said. Witnesses observed Pino drinking a beer, and he told FWC investigator Lt. William Thompson he had “two beers.”

However, Srebnick pointed out that several people on the scene, including Thompson, concluded Pino was not impaired.

Srebnick also said the 61 empty or partially empty bottles of alcohol found on Pino’s boat when it was pulled out of the water were on the vessel because Pino’s wife gathered them from other boaters partying with them to avoid littering.

Facing the jury, Srebnick repeated that the crash was a tragedy — and was not caused by reckless or culpably negligent behavior.

“All it would have taken would be a slight turn of the wheel, and none of us would be here,” Srebnick said. “… The evidence will show that Mr. Pino was human and that something happened that we may never know. … Why was he distracted for those 9 seconds?”