MIAMI — During the final minutes of the fifth day of George Pino’s vessel homicide and manslaughter trial, tension erupted between the Doral real estate broker and lead prosecutor Laura Adams.

There was also a confrontation between Pino, 55, and someone supporting the family of Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, the 17-year-old girl who was killed after Pino crashed his boat into a Biscayne Bay channel marker on Sept. 4, 2022.

It’s not clear what happened, but as Pino was exiting the courtroom, his friends separated him from the crowd of Fernandez family supporters heading toward the door, yelling, “George, sit down!”

About five minutes earlier, right after the jury left, Adams told Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez that she had heard Pino saying words along the lines of “It happens, it happens, it happens” from his seat at the defense table earlier when she was discussing the crash with a witness on the stand. Adams was concerned the jury may have heard him.

As Tinkler Mendez spoke to her, Adams snapped at Pino, “Excuse me, do you have something you want to say to me? Why are you staring at me?”

The drama capped a week of testimony from witnesses, including police officers working the case, plus Lucy’s father, Andres Fernandez, and two of the girls who were on the boat that day.

Pino’s behavior on the first day of the trial was also an issue. As his lead attorney, Howard Srebnick, was minutes into his opening statements, Pino began crying, shaking and breathing heavily. His oldest daughter sat next to him, and the judge removed the jury.

The next day, Tinkler Mendez again warned Pino’s defense team about hugging and interacting with friends and family in front of the jury. The judge reissued her warning before she left the courtroom Friday.

“Even gestures are inappropriate,” Tinkler Mendez said.

Lead investigator testifies

The lead Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigator in charge of the probe testified Friday that Pino voluntarily told him another boat caused the tragedy.

Lucy, 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 Adams and jurors 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 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 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.

Pino’s attorneys are leaning heavy into his memory being affected because of the crash. Mark Shapiro, one of his lawyers, noted while cross-examining Thompson that key factors of what Pino told him about the crash that day turned out to be wrong.

Most notably, Pino told Thompson that he pulled a girl named Natalia Reed from underneath his capsized boat. The girl was actually Lucy Fernandez. Pino also told Thompson the wrong size of his vessel’s engines and the wrong side of the boat that was damaged in the crash, Shapiro noted Friday.

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 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.

At the trial, the jury was allowed to hear that Pino said he drank the two beers that day, but they were not allowed to know he said it in response to declining the alcohol test.

Several of the girls on the boat told attorneys in the case 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. 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.

Reconstructing the scene

Thompson on Friday also discussed a reconstruction he and his colleagues performed on an FWC boat to recreate Pino’s path right up to the crash.

Weather conditions on the day of the test, conducted one year ago, were similar to Sept. 4, 2022. It was sunny, with flat seas and little wind, Thompson said.

Thompson used an FWC boat to run the route. The specifications were almost identical to Pino’s Robalo. It was a foot longer than Pino’s vessel, but both are powered by twin 300-horsepower outboard engines, Thompson said.

Thompson used a camera to show that even as he was far away from Marker 15, the piling was easily in view. The officer also noted that the tide was higher on the day of the recreation than on the day of the crash, meaning it was easier to see on the day Pino hit it.

Thompson said the test run almost identically mirrored Pino’s path before he accelerated from 43 to 47 mph seconds prior to impact — with one exception. His crew stopped in time to avoid colliding with the piling.

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