LIVE: VERDICT: Boat Crash Case | FL v. George Pino

[00:00:00]Everybody we have a verdict there in Florida for a case that I've been following for you. This is the boat crash manslaughter trial for George Pino. He's age 55. He's a very wealthy real estate developer and he was accused of driving recklessly or piloting a boat recklessly. He was facing several charges in the death of Lucy Fernandez and then there were two other teens that were critically injured. Um I have it queued up the verdict. It was short.

[00:00:28]Let's watch it together.

[00:00:29]>> Good morning ladies [clears throat] and gentlemen. I understand the jury has reached a verdict. Is that correct?

[00:00:34]>> Yes, Judge.

[00:00:35]>> All right. Our four person, please hand the verdict form to Renee.

[00:00:40]Thank you.

[00:01:25]Mr. Clerk, please publish the verdict.

[00:01:27]>> Yes, sir.

[00:01:31]In the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida.

[00:01:37]State of Florida versus Gilberto Pino.

[00:01:41]Case number F24-22896.

[00:01:44]Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.

[00:01:47]Verdict.

[00:01:48]We the jury find unanimously as follows.

[00:01:53]As to count one information, manslaughter of Luciana Christina Fernandez, the defendant is not guilty.

[00:02:00]So say we all on this 22nd day of June, 2026. Signed by the foreperson, C. Katz.

[00:02:12]In the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida.

[00:02:17]State of Florida versus George Pino.

[00:02:19]Case number F24-22896.

[00:02:23]Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.

[00:02:25]Verdict.

[00:02:26]We, the jury, find as to count as to count four of the information, vessel homicide of Luciana Cristina Fernandez, the defendant is not guilty.

[00:02:36]So say we all on this 22nd day of June, 2026.

[00:02:42]Signed by the foreperson, C. Katz.

[00:02:49]>> Does counsel for either the state or the defense wish to have the jury polled?

[00:02:54]>> Yes, ma'am.

[00:02:54]>> Madam Clerk, please poll the jury with the initial verdict.

[00:02:58]>> That's kind of surprising, right? Well, a lot of legal analysts have really wondered whether or not this should have been in the criminal realm. He's facing a whole world of hurt in a different regard in terms of uh civil court and liability there.

[00:03:12]Um but whether or not prosecutors overreached here charging him with second-degree manslaughter and vessel homicide, um let me know in the comments below.

[00:03:25]But um no surprise there that this defendant, um George Pino, breaking down at the defense table like what we saw in the first day of these proceedings, right?

[00:03:37]They had to stop um proceedings on day one after opening remarks. They couldn't even finish opening remarks by his attorney for so much emotions running high um during this 2-week-long trial.

[00:03:52]So, let me play a little bit of the closing remarks.

[00:03:58]>> I told you that this is a case about responsibility and accountability.

[00:04:08]Now that you've heard all the evidence in this case, you can see that this defendant is a man who abdicated all responsibility as the captain of the ship owes to each one of his passengers.

[00:04:26]Now, don't say we of course boating can be a lot of fun and you know that.

[00:04:32]Look at the pictures that we have against all [clears throat] of the evidence [laughter] in this case.

[00:04:38]You have I'm going You all saw the photograph that Andy Fernandez took from his boat looking across to the defendant's boat.

[00:04:53]Where the teenagers are on the boat, they're in the water.

[00:04:57]What a great time. What a special day.

[00:05:00]That photograph was taken because Andy Fernandez was taken with how special it was that his teenage daughter said, "Mom, Dad, come on out to see the sandbar."

[00:05:10]He really didn't want to.

[00:05:13]Thank God he did.

[00:05:14]And he knows God he did.

[00:05:20]When boating is done safely, what a wonderful thing to do.

[00:05:25]But when people like this defendant do not take seriously their responsibility to their own passengers and to other boaters and passengers that might be in the area, disaster and catastrophe can happen.

[00:05:41]And though it may seem obvious, I wanted to highlight for you in this trial that boat crashes are a lot different than car crashes. When you're on a boat, you're basically like someone in the back of a pickup truck.

[00:05:56]On boats, you don't have the benefit of brakes, not even antilock brakes. You don't have seat belts. You don't have a steel cage surrounding you to protect you from impacting other objects.

[00:06:09]There's no airbags.

[00:06:11]And if God forbid something should happen and you fall out of that boat, you jump out of that boat, you're ejected from that boat, you run the risk of drowning, even if the injuries that you sustain weren't that serious.

[00:06:28]I did know that to be true cuz that's exactly what happened to Lucy Fernandez.

[00:06:36]Now, in this case, you have evidence, beyond any reasonable [clears throat] doubt, that this defendant disregarded basic navigational rules and concepts of safety.

[00:06:55]And he did so in a manner that made it a near certainty that tragedy would result.

[00:07:05]This tragedy, the death of Lucy Fernandez, was completely was completely preventable.

[00:07:15]>> [laughter] >> But out of this abrogation of duty that this defendant owed to his own daughter, to his wife, and to those 11 other teenage girls, these 13 other souls that were on his boat, what did he do?

[00:07:33]He lied over and over and over again about what happened.

[00:07:41]Why?

[00:07:42]To shift the blame away from himself and in an avoidance of accountability.

[00:07:49]That's why I told you at the beginning of this case, this is a case about responsibility or the lack thereof and accountability and the complete lack thereof.

[00:08:01]So, let's talk about what was happening on that Sunday.

[00:08:05]It's Labor Day. It's best day of the day.

[00:08:08]There's a little >> Okay, so that's a little bit of the closing remarks by the prosecutor, very passionate of it.

[00:08:15]>> [snorts] >> Very passionate, uh pointing her finger over at that defendant at the time and saying that it was all his fault and really opening with two things, which was really dynamic and actually um probably helpful. Um saying that this is about responsibility and accountability.

[00:08:31]So, um I thought it was a good presentation by prosecutors.

[00:08:36]Again, he showing emotion. You saw the eyebrow raise uh when she was accusing him of uh being negligent.

[00:08:45]So, let's put on a little bit of the defense.

[00:08:49]>> And because there was no one to love him.

[00:08:51]And because the conditions were ideal.

[00:08:55]The state really has no theory of why George should be labeled a criminal.

[00:09:03]Because it's not like George was going in racing through incoming traffic, going zigzagging out of folks, and then hit the marker.

[00:09:10]It was a perfectly as everyone said, it was like the ideal day to go boating.

[00:09:15]And it comes back to what I told you earlier when we started.

[00:09:20]That what the state is telling you is that George made a mistake.

[00:09:25]He didn't see the marker.

[00:09:27]And now we're going to talk about it.

[00:09:29]What what's left of the case in the criminal case where the state has no theory other than to bring to your attention things that would they try to influence your decision based on facts that have nothing to do with the operation of the motor vessel.

[00:09:44]Let's start with under age drinking.

[00:09:47]And it was the subject of our jury selection when we talked about this earlier.

[00:09:52]Whether the girls, the passengers were 17 or 27, the age makes no difference.

[00:10:00]We're not here to judge these parents based on their decision to allow 17-year-old high school seniors to drink.

[00:10:08]None of them were operating the boat.

[00:10:11]All of them were seated where they're supposed to sit. There was a life preserver for each and every one available.

[00:10:17]True, none of them was wearing one, but the law doesn't require it.

[00:10:21]Look, George complied with the law by having a life preserver available for every single passenger on that boat.

[00:10:28]Nothing more was required.

[00:10:30]And what the state is saying is to you is that every time when someone comes on your boat and has to drink, and I don't know if it's limited by age, but now the operator of the motor vessel needs to put a life preserver on every drinking passenger.

[00:10:44]Now, I assume that doesn't apply on big cruise ships, which are famous for people going drinking, or big yachts, maybe. I don't know where the line is going to be drawn in the future.

[00:10:55]But beware if you're a boater.

[00:10:57]Beware.

[00:10:59]Because you take a group of people out on your boat, and they have a few drinks, some prosecutor will say that because you didn't put a life preserver that passenger, you are now a reckless boating operator.

[00:11:14]Cuz that's what she's saying.

[00:11:16]But she focuses on the age again, I think to just sort of to do two things. It's really of course much more painful to to know that a young person passed. And let me point out that I think the medical examiner told us that there was no evidence that Lucy had any blood alcohol in her system when they tested her.

[00:11:37]So, I don't think there was any evidence that Lucy was drinking.

[00:11:41]There was any evidence about that at all. Some of the other girls were for sure.

[00:11:45]Nothing about Lucy there.

[00:11:50]But, it sounds to me like what the prosecutor wants you to do is say he's a bad parent because he, and by the way, the other parents at the sandbar, to include Lucy's parents, are bad parents. And so, let's convict them of being irresponsible parents and call them reckless and callous.

[00:12:11]The underage or any age drinking of the passengers had nothing to do with why the boat hit the marker.

[00:12:20]I hope that's clear by now.

[00:12:22]Nor did the absence of a kill switch go to >> Okay, I'm going to hit the pause button right there. Um, I'm reading a few of your comments and you said that the alcohol factor really made a big difference to you and it really bothered you. I I think that it does bother a lot of people, but he wasn't charged with with that. So, that was a little bit of the defense. We also heard from prosecutors. Let me play a little bit um, of key testimony.

[00:12:49]I think that maybe we should hear testimony from uh, Lucy's father. Very emotional. He was one of the first witnesses to testify, if he wasn't the first, I believe. And this is from Andreas and remember, he lost his daughter and they were all out celebrating uh, George Pino's daughter's 18th birthday. That's why everybody was on board this boat. And there was 13 people on board at the time of this crash back in 2022. And I misspoke earlier, George Pino is 55 now, um, according to the information that I have, and he was 52 at the time of the incident that was in question. And it was a jury that didn't uh, deliberate for very long, right? They were given the case today after those closing remarks.

[00:13:34]And again, it was like 8 days of testimony, 2 weeks roughly, and 20 witnesses, and and this is one of them, so.

[00:13:42]>> Where's Lucy?

[00:13:43]And we were just looking all over the place, and we couldn't see her, we couldn't see her, and we were just screaming, "Where's Lucy?"

[00:13:51]Nobody was responding to us.

[00:13:53]As we got closer, we saw Kathy Puid on the back of the swim platform, and she was in really bad shape.

[00:14:04]And at that point in time, Melly and I knew that at some point, while we're screaming, someone said, I don't know, but we learned that Lucy had left on the police boat. That's the only information we got. Lucy left on the police boat, find the police boat, Lucy left on the police boat.

[00:14:21]>> Did you know anything about a helicopter ride or anything like that at that point?

[00:14:25]>> At that point, no.

[00:14:27]>> Does there come a time when you do get information about what hospital you might be able to find your child?

[00:14:31]>> Yes.

[00:14:32]>> Where?

[00:14:33]>> Uh at some point, when we were already on our way back from Ocean Reef to Miami, we learned that some of the girls had been taken via helicopter, and maybe even land, because there was a lot of information going on, uh to to Jackson South.

[00:14:52]>> Did you go there?

[00:14:53]>> We were on our way there. We had spoken with family members and friends who were on their way there, and that's where we were going.

[00:15:01]>> Um was Lucy at Jackson South?

[00:15:05]>> No, she was not.

[00:15:06]>> So, did you then have to caravan to another hospital?

[00:15:10]>> at that point, you know, our nightmare escalates, because we have no idea where Lucy is. We can't find her. We don't know where she went. We don't know where she was taken.

[00:15:21]And it was a traumatic and nightmare experience that was playing out in front of us.

[00:15:27]We at some point get information that there may have been girls or a girl taken to another hospital. And we were told to go check Kendall Regional.

[00:15:38]So, we headed that way.

[00:15:41]>> When you get to Kendall Regional Hospital, ultimately, do you get to see your daughter there?

[00:15:46]>> Ultimately.

[00:15:48]>> Can you tell us what the process was when she got to Kendall Hospital to be able to see your daughter?

[00:15:53]>> Objection, relevance.

[00:15:57]>> Pardon me?

[00:16:00]>> We got there and and as you can imagine, you know, when Lucy arrives, she has no ID, she has no nothing, so nobody knows who she is. So, we walk into Kendall Regional and we go up to the reception desk and we go we we received information uh that our daughter who was involved in a boating accident may have been brought here. And we had a picture of Lucy on our phone and we showed it to the receptionists.

[00:16:27]And the receptionist comes back and says, "Yes, somebody was brought here, but we cannot ID her from that picture because she's in bad shape."

[00:16:37]And at that point, Melly and I knew the inevitable.

[00:16:42]But, we said, "Okay, she has a birthmark on the side of her hip and she also has a a necklace with her initials, LCF, Luciana Cristina Fernandez, and her date of birth."

[00:16:59]And we told that to the receptionists.

[00:17:01]The receptionist went and and got on the phone and Melly and I walked away.

[00:17:05]She called us back a few minutes later and she goes, "Your daughter's here."

[00:17:10]>> Are you able to go and see her?

[00:17:12]>> We did.

[00:17:14]>> Can you describe what you saw when you entered the room where she was.

[00:17:20]>> Horrific.

[00:17:22]A parent's worst nightmare.

[00:17:25]We walk in and she's hooked up to machines.

[00:17:29]She's got tubes coming out of every hole.

[00:17:34]And we walk in, a nurse is performing some sort of emergency CPR on her to just try and keep her faint heartbeat alive.

[00:17:43]We have no doubt that she was holding on for Melly and I to get there.

[00:17:49]>> Does there come a time over the course of that well, do you remember approximately what time it was when you finally get to see your daughter?

[00:17:59]>> I have no idea.

[00:18:00]>> Nighttime though?

[00:18:01]>> Yes, it was definitely nighttime.

[00:18:03]>> Um does your daughter pass away the next morning?

[00:18:06]>> She passes the next morning at 6:30 a.m.

[00:18:09]>> [snorts] >> All right, just a little bit of key testimony there from the victim's father in all of this and um truly a family that'll never be the same with the loss of his 17-year-old daughter, Lucy Fernandez. And that's what this case was about. Um Court TV and others called it the boat crash manslaughter trial. Again, George Pino was on trial for second-degree manslaughter. He was also charged with vessel homicide. He was found not guilty earlier tonight, if you're just joining me. There were 13 people on on board of that uh boat when this all took place in 2022 on George Pino's daughter's 18th birthday. That's the reason why everybody was together. Everybody knew each other. Uh George Pino's wife was on board, his daughter as I mentioned.

[00:19:08]There were um two girls that were uh teens that were um badly injured, serious bodily injury from Isabella Rodriguez. And then there was uh Katerina Pugh. Um I think I'm saying that right, if not I'm I apologize. Uh serious bodily injuries.

[00:19:27]Um never the same. Um this has also developed into a civil case, um but criminal charges are dropped at this point in time.

[00:19:37]Let me know what you think about this uh whether or not you believe that there should have been criminal charges ever filed in the first place. That was some of the critiques or the or you know the heated debate that was on Court TV when I anchored a few days of the coverage of all of this. I know that it was uh a very um emotional filled um testimony and also there was a lot of emotion in the courtroom just in general with the prosecutors and the defense team and this defendant. He broke down during the first day. They had to stop down and uh the defense had to finish their opening statement on day two.

[00:20:13]Um it was a jury of six, eight days of testimony, two weeks. They also did a jury view, not of the scene of course because it's out in open water, Biscayne Bay, but they visited where the boat was being housed. Uh so they did a jury view of the boat and they saw the wreckage.

[00:20:31]And um also pieces of the boat were brought in as case evidence to the well and right in front of that jury. Um there was again 20 witnesses and we just showed you some of that, but I'm also thinking about the families. You know, you had um Lucy's family break down in the gallery. It looked like they were uh very tearful. And uh just think yesterday was Father's Day. And then, you know, they know that they had to be in court today and it was going to be closing arguments and then, you know, just a few hours later it became a not guilty. So [snorts] um my heart goes out to all of the families involved in all of this, and really that community.

[00:21:08]Um I saw video of young Lucy's mass um after her death, and it was a beautiful ceremony, and there was just hundreds of people out there um paying tribute to her, and let's just try to remember her.

[00:21:22]But again, I hope that you take care of yourselves. Thank you so much for just jumping on. I saw that there was a verdict, and I just thought I would help cover it with you guys and talk about it with you.

[00:21:31]Um and I hope that you have a good night. I published a video earlier today. It was a conversation with a body language expert, Susan Constantine. I have a few of those in the videos down below, and this one was on uh the Long Island serial killer, and um her observations with he and his wife um on television, in her in her statements, and also when he was sentenced last week. So, please check it out. I just posted that. I plan on posting few more episodes later this week. Um please help uh support the channel by sharing it with people that you know. Let's get the word out and bring the true crime family back together. I certainly appreciate you being here. Again, uh take care of yourself, and I'll see you next time, okay?