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George Pino stands during a short break in his trial on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Miami. Pino is charged in connection to the crash that killed 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez.<\/p>\n
Carl Juste<\/p>\n
cjuste@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Robert Brutto was working as a Miami-Dade Police Department marine patrol officer during the early evening of Sept. 4, 2022, when he and his colleagues received the call that there was a horrific boat accident near Elliott Key in Biscayne Bay.<\/p>\n
Brutto, now retired from what is now the Miami-Dade Sheriff\u2019s Office, left the Marine Patrol base at Black Point Marina in Cutler Bay to become one of the initial first responders to the scene where Doral real estate broker George Pino crashed his boat, killing 17-year-old Luciana \u201cLucy\u201d Fernandez and permanently injuring her classmate, now 21-year-old Katerina \u201cKaty\u201d Puig.<\/p>\n
Lucy Fernandez The Lucy Fernandez Foundation <\/p>\n
Brutto and his colleagues arrived at Cutter Bank, where Pino smashed into a steel channel marker minutes earlier, to help steady a civilian boat, on which Lucy was lying, from the propeller wash gusting from an overhead Miami-Dade Fire Rescue helicopter, which was lowering a paramedic on board, Brutto testified Tuesday afternoon during Pino\u2019s vessel-homicide and manslaughter trial in Miami.<\/p>\n
To steady the other boat, Brutto had to press his police vessel up against it to stop it from spinning in the powerful, prop-driven winds.<\/p>\n
Moments earlier, Pino had pulled Lucy from underneath his capsized boat. Boaters, some of whom were the ones who urged Pino to look beneath the vessel for Lucy, got her to a civilian boat and began CPR. After the paramedic was lowered, she was transferred to a police boat and taken to shore to be taken to Kendall Regional Hospital, where she died the next morning.<\/p>\n
Brutto then pulled up to a large boat on which Katy and another girl, Isabella Rodriguez, were lying in the fetal position after being severely injured. People on that boat also picked up some of the other girls involved in the crash. Pino was on another civilian\u2019s boat, floating next to that vessel, and then got on Brutto\u2019s boat, the footage shows.<\/p>\n
Brutto told jurors that Katy was in bad shape. She was unresponsive, her breathing was labored and she had a weak pulse. He radioed for Katy and Isabella to be medically transferred from the boat. He said Katy had fiberglass fragments from Pino\u2019s boat in her hair. She was never conscious when he was on scene, and Isabella only communicated in nods.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Howard Srebnick and his team did not want the jury to see Brutto\u2019s body camera footage, which showed the chaotic scene on the swim deck of the large boat as the sun was setting in the distance, with audio of the girls\u2019 friends screaming for someone to help Katy and Isabella.<\/p>\n
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Defense attorney Howard Srebnick delivers the defense\u2019s opening statement on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in the trial of George Pino. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marissa Tinkler Mendez, who\u2019s presiding over the trial, allowed the jury to see the video Wednesday, but prosecutors agreed to remove audio that referred to the severity of Puig\u2019s injuries. The video was also edited and did not show the extent of the girl\u2019s injuries. Pino is charged with Lucy\u2019s death, not injuring Katy.<\/p>\n
As part of a series of pre-trial motions, Pino\u2019s attorneys asked Tinkler Mendez to stop the jury from hearing about Puig\u2019s injuries. She continues to relearn motor skills and will likely deal with a lifetime of physical and neurological challenges. Rodriguez was also seriously hurt, but has recovered.<\/p>\n
The body camera footage shows a shirtless Pino on another boat, and Brutto asking him if he was injured. Pino is heard saying he was \u201calright,\u201d but a woman with him says he had a head injury. Brutto, who testified that Pino had a head gash, then asked him to remain seated because of his injury, the footage shows.<\/p>\n
Pino was eventually transferred to another police boat and taken to Elliott Key, where firefighters and police set up a triage and staging area. It was there where Pino told Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Investigator William Thompson that another boat coming at his caused the wreck and that he had \u201ctwo beers\u201d when asked by Thompson if he would voluntarily submit to a blood draw to test for alcohol.<\/p>\n
Tinkler Mendez rejected defense attorneys\u2019 attempts to have those two statements barred from jurors\u2019 ears. The claim of the other boat was once central to Pino\u2019s explanation as to what caused the crash. It\u2019s a statement he not only told police, but also repeated in a sworn statement several months later in a civil case connected to the crash.<\/p>\n
But no other witness corroborated the claim nor did photographic evidence.<\/p>\n
Footage of Lucy<\/p>\n
The jury also watched powerful body camera footage from another Marine Patrol officer, Sgt. Peter Delgado. The defense tried to bar the jury from seeing that footage, too. It showed officers transferring Lucy, who was unconscious, from one police boat to another on a board to stabilize her back.<\/p>\n
The officers then raced Lucy to Elliott Key, trading turns with chest compressions en route in their speeding patrol boat as a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue helicopter was waiting to take her to a hospital.<\/p>\n
The footage was shown in the courtroom without the jurors present at first so the judge could decide whether they should see it. Some clips, showing officers performing rapid and intense chest compressions on Lucy, were so disturbing that members of her family left the courtroom in tears. Judge Tinkler Mendez allowed the jury to see the footage, but without the clips of the officers performing CPR.<\/p>\n
Pino, 55, was on his 29-foot Robalo center-console boat that day heading back to the gated Ocean Reef Club community in north Key Largo from an afternoon outing at an Elliott Key sandbar celebrating his daughter Cecilia\u2019s 18th birthday. He was with his wife, also named Cecilia, and 11 of the daughter\u2019s friends, including Lucy, Katy and Isabella.<\/p>\n
Pino is not charged with boating under the influence, and investigators say alcohol was not a factor in the crash. While some witnesses testified during the trial that they saw Pino drinking that day, and several of the girls with him drank alcohol to excess, no witness said they saw Pino drunk, and several testified he did not show signs of impairment.<\/p>\n
Cops also found 61 empty and partially-empty containers of various types of alcohol when they salvaged the Robalo the day after the crash. Pino\u2019s attorneys say those containers were not just from Pino and his passengers, but also from other people partying at Elliott Key. The attorneys said Pino\u2019s boat was used to take the bottles and cans to shore to be thrown away.<\/p>\n
The Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s Office charged Pino with vessel homicide in October 2024 and manslaughter later that year. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He had been charged with far-less severe counts of misdemeanor careless boating after the original Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigation ended in August 2023.<\/p>\n
Had he pleaded guilty, he was only looking at 60 days in a county jail and a fine. But, following a series of Miami Herald stories reporting flaws in the investigation, prosecutors reexamined the case and filed the felony charges.<\/p>\n
Pino\u2019s wife testifies<\/p>\n
Cecilia Pino, the wife of George Pino, stressed during questioning from lead prosecutor Laura Adams that she considered Lucy\u2019s death \u201can accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
She made the statement after Adams insisted Lucy \u201cdied because your husband crashed into that channel marker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cecilia Pino, 51, responded, \u201cShe died because there was an accident.\u201d Adams then ended her questioning.<\/p>\n
The exchange with Cecilia Pino lasted about 15 minutes, and she told Adams and the jurors that she packed a cooler containing alcoholic beverages on the boat for the outing from the Ocean Reef Club to Elliott Key for her daughter\u2019s 18th birthday celebration.<\/p>\n
She also said she had \u201cone or two\u201d Proseccos mixed with a splash of Chambord in her Yeti thermos that day.<\/p>\n
Two of the 12 girls on the boat that day said they drank alcoholic beverages from the Pinos\u2019 cooler. One of them, now 21, testified this week that she drank 10 hard lemonades that day.<\/p>\n
Hospital blood work for Puig showed her blood alcohol level well above the legal limit four hours after the incident.<\/p>\n
A packed courtroom<\/p>\n
Puig\u2019s family has attended every day of the trial, but has not spoken. The courtroom has been packed, with one side filled with Pino\u2019s supporters, and the others in support of the Fernandez and Puig families.<\/p>\n
![\"Katerina](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781152587_492_MIA_2025-07-02AD0075LUCYSLA.jpeg\" "\\"MIA_2025-07-02AD0075LUCYSLA\\"")
Katerina \u2018Katy\u2019 Puig receives a hug from her brother, Rudy Puig Jr., on July 2, 2025. Puig suffered severe injuries due to the crash. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
Lucy\u2019s father, Andres Fernandez, testified Tuesday about how he and his wife, Melissa, drove their boat to the sandbar to briefly visit their daughter, who asked them to stop by. He emotionally told jurors that he gave her what became their last embrace when he and Melissa headed back to Ocean Reef so he could catch Florida State\u2019s opening football game that evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe gave me a hug, and I remember it clearly because it was the last time I held her alive,\u201d Fernandez told jurors and Adams on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 12:42 PM.<\/p>\n
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