Florida real estate mogul hit with homicide charge in 2022 boat crash that killed teen, permanently disabled another
A Florida real estate mogul has been slapped with a felony homicide charge for a boat crash that killed a teen as newly released bodycam footage captured the moment he admitted that he had “two beers” while operating the vessel.Miami-Dade prosecutors charged George Pino with vessel homicide/operating in a reckless manner on Thursday in connection to the fatal boat wreck over Labor Day weekend in 2022, according to Local10.Pino, 52, was operating his 29-foot Robalo boat with 14 passengers, including several teens, for his daughter’s 18th birthday on Sept.
4, 2022, when he struck a channel marker near Boca Chita Key — an island north of the upper Florida Keys.The force of the crash launched all the passengers into the water and capsized the boat.The wreck killed 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez and left 18-year-old soccer star Katerina Puig with a traumatic brain injury and disabled for life.The girls were both students at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami.Another teen was also injured, but their name was not released.Body cam footage obtained by NBC 6 on Thursday shows Pino speaking with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers following the fatal crash.The real estate mogul claimed to officers that he was steering the boat through the channel when another boat caused a wave, causing him to lose control of the vessel.He said two of the girls were “sitting in the back seat of the boat,” “five or six” others at the front, and his wife in the middle when the boat “approached the waves head-first.”“I was looking at the girls just to make sure they were ok because they were sitting on the back, and the next thing I know I hit the wave and I tried to swing and the right side of the boat, that would be the left side of the boat, hit the pylon,” Pino told the officers.The prominent real estate developer declined to have his blood drawn voluntarily for alcohol and refused a breathalyzer test at the scene of the crash.“No, I ...