Lead FWC investigator testifies on Day 5 of George Pino boat crash trial

Miami-Dade County admin June 12, 2026 0 Comments

Lead FWC investigator testifies on Day 5 of George Pino boat crash trial

The lead Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigator in charge of the probe into George Pino’s Sept. 4, 2022, Biscayne Bay boat crash testified Friday that the Doral real estate broker voluntarily told him another boat caused the tragedy.

Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, 17, who was embarking on her senior year at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, died the day after the crash from drowning. Her classmate, Katerina “Katy” Puig, a standout soccer player with Division I college prospects, was left with a lifetime of neurological and physical challenges resulting from her injuries in the wreck.

Lt. William Thompson told prosecutor Laura Adams and jurors on day five of Pino’s vessel homicide and manslaughter trial that Pino made the statement blaming the other boat that night without being asked, adding that Pino was not in custody when he said it.

As first responders were dealing with the aftermath of the crash on the water in the Cutter Bank channel where it happened that night, other police and firefighters set up a triage center at Elliott Key Harbor, where they brought Pino and his less-injured passengers.

Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies also rushed Lucy Fernandez to the island, where a Fire Rescue chopper crew was waiting to fly her to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital. She died there the next morning.

Thompson asked Pino as he pulled into Elliott Key harbor on a police vessel at 8:16 p.m. if the boat involved in the wreck was his. The crash happened around 6:37 p.m.

Instead of answering, Pino spontaneously told Thompson that another boat came at him that threw a wave and caused him to lose control of his 29-foot Robalo and crash into the channel marker.

At that point, Thompson did not want to hear about the cause of the crash, only if the boat belonged to Pino so he could arrange its removal from the channel, the officer testified.

Pino continued to maintain the other boat narrative until the final weeks before trial. No one else saw another boat coming in the opposite direction that night — not anyone on his boat, nor anyone else in the channel in the moments leading up to the crash.

Photographic evidence also did not corroborate what Adams calls “the phantom boat” theory.

Nevertheless, not only did Pino tell police that another boat caused him to crash, he repeated the claim months later in a sworn statement in a civil lawsuit stemming from the crash.

Pino’s attorneys were unsuccessful in persuading Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez to bar the claim from being mentioned in the trial. His attorneys now have a doctor prepared to testify that Pino’s head injury from the crash caused him to incorrectly remember what happened.

Adams played footage from Thompson’s body camera footage that showed Pino tell the investigator about the other boat as soon as he arrived at Elliott Key Harbor and again later during an interview at a picnic bench on the island.

Pino also wrote about the other boat in a brief written statement Thompson requested, which included a chart of where Pino thought everyone was sitting on the boat. Thompson said the statement was written under oath.

Pino, 55, was driving his wife, Cecilia, 51, their daughter and 11 of his daughter’s friends back to Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo that night from an afternoon outing on Elliott Key. The day on the Elliott Key sandbar was a celebration for the daughter’s 18th birthday, and there was a dinner planned at Ocean Reef at 9 p.m.

Driving on the left side of the channel at 43 mph, Pino revved the boat to 47 mph before smashing his Robalo center console into Marker 15, the last channel marker in Cutter Bank. Adams told jurors the steel piling with a green day-glow sign attached should have been visible to Pino for 17 seconds, and he had nine seconds to avoid it before impact.

Thompson testified that after he asked Pino to sign a consent form for police to search his boat, he read Pino his Miranda rights, including the right to remain silent. He was not under arrest, but Thompson said he read him the rights in case Pino ended up saying anything incriminating while he was being interviewed.

Thompson said Pino continued to speak with him and was cooperative. Pino said, “I’d rather talk about it later,” as Thompson prepared the consent to search form as the two sat at the picnic table, the body camera footage showed. But Pino continued speaking and agreed to write the brief statement about what happened.

Pino is seen in the footage shirtless, in shorts and with his head bandaged.

Thompson, who wrote in his final report on the crash in August 2023 that alcohol was not a factor, testified Friday that Pino showed no signs of impairment.

Ruling out alcohol was controversial because Pino told Thompson that night that he drank “two beers” that day. And cops found 61 empty and partially empty booze bottles and cans on his boat when it was salvaged from the water the next day. Pino told Thompson about his two beers as a reason for why he declined to voluntarily submit blood to test for alcohol consumption.

Several of the girls on the boat later testified that they drank heavily from a cooler on the Pinos’ boat that day. Katy Puig’s blood, taken hours later at the hospital, showed she was still well over the legal driving limit.

Jurors on Friday were shown photographs of the alcoholic beverages found on Pino’s boat. Howard Srebnick, Pino’s lead attorney, and his team contend the bottles and cans also came from other boats that were at the sandbar, not just their client’s vessel. Srebnick said Cecilia Pino used her husband’s boat to clean up trash from the Elliott Key outing.