A Miami jury acquitted real estate developer George Pino on Monday of second-degree manslaughter and vessel homicide charges stemming from a 2022 Labor Day boat crash in Biscayne Bay that killed 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez and left another teenager, Katy Puig, with a traumatic brain injury and permanent disabilities that will follow her for the rest of her life.
The verdict came after eight emotionally charged days of testimony in a South Florida courtroom. Pino, 55, was at the helm of his 29-foot vessel on the afternoon of September 4, 2022, when it struck a channel marker near Boca Chita Key. The impact was catastrophic — all 14 passengers were thrown into the water, the boat sustained a large hole in its hull, and 11 of the 14 people on board were injured, with six requiring hospitalization. Fernandez died from her injuries. Puig, now 21, sustained a traumatic brain injury that prosecutors said has permanently altered the course of her life. Prosecutors argued Pino was operating recklessly and that the collision was not a simple accident. The defense countered that no witnesses observed signs of impairment and that the crash was a genuine accident on a busy holiday weekend waterway.
"From the beginning, we have maintained that the events of September 4, 2022, were a tragic accident, not a crime. The testimony confirmed that Mr. Pino was not under the influence, was not operating the vessel recklessly, and that he did everything he could to protect his passengers after the accident." — Lead defense attorney Howard Srebnick
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle expressed disappointment with the verdict but accepted the jury's decision, saying she and her prosecutors had believed the totality of Pino's actions on the water constituted criminal recklessness under Florida law. The jury disagreed. For the families of Lucy Fernandez and Katy Puig, the acquittal means no criminal conviction will accompany the losses they have already suffered — a young woman dead at 17, another permanently brain-injured at a moment when her life was just beginning.
The case drew significant attention in South Florida both because of the severity of the injuries and because of Pino's prominence as a commercial real estate developer. His firm, SEFCO Commercial Real Estate, operates extensively throughout Miami-Dade. The trial ran for more than a week and included testimony from eyewitnesses, medical experts, and maritime navigation specialists. Pino did not testify in his own defense.
Channel markers in Biscayne Bay are navigational aids that delineate safe passages for watercraft in the shallow, heavily trafficked bay. Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest recreational boating weekends of the year in South Florida. Under Florida law, vessel homicide requires proof that the operator caused a death through reckless operation of a vessel — a legal standard the jury found the prosecution did not meet beyond a reasonable doubt.
A not-guilty verdict is not a declaration of innocence — it is a determination that the prosecution did not meet its burden of proof. The jury heard the evidence and reached a conclusion the law permits. But for the Fernandez and Puig families, the legal outcome changes nothing about what they have lost. Lucy Fernandez was 17 years old. Katy Puig is 21 and living with a brain injury she will carry for decades. Whatever the verdict says about criminal liability, the human cost of that September afternoon in Biscayne Bay is permanent and real.