‘He just pointed a gun at me’: 911 call from Tatiana Pino’s house shows daughter’s terror
Alessandra Pino thought she was the only one home when a gunman pointed a pistol at her head on a Sunday morning last month, and she quickly worried that her mother, Tatiana Pino, would soon be in danger, too.
“I need to tell my mom not to come home,” Alessandra Pino, 26, told a 911 operator in a June 23 call placed seconds after she said a man outside their Pinecrest home threatened her with a gun. “They might be looking for her. She’s a victim.”
It was a reasonable fear: Federal investigators now say the armed ambush was part of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Alessandra’s father, Miami developer Sergio Pino, against Tatiana, his estranged wife. Tatiana was in fact the target that day, according to investigators, having been followed home from church by the gunman later charged with the attack: Vernon Green, 53.
In charging documents, federal investigators said Tatiana Pino helped foil the ambush by gunning her car as she came home and found an armed man in her driveway, racing her SUV into the backyard with the horn blaring and creating enough commotion that her daughter came outside to see what was happening.
READ MORE: FBI alleges Miami developer Sergio Pino hired ‘murder crews’ to kill his estranged wife
That’s when Alessandra Pino called 911, crouching behind her car and reaching an operator at 11:33 am. The audio, released Tuesday by the Pinecrest Police Department, details both Alessandra’s terror at what she saw and her instant hunch that the man with a gun was there for her mother.
A year earlier, someone had rammed a rented Home Depot truck into Tatiana Pino’s SUV in the same driveway — an attack Tatiana and her inner circle assumed was the work of Sergio Pino during the couple’s protracted divorce.
READ MORE: Video shows targeted hit-and-run on developer Sergio Pino’s wife that led to 4 arrests
Tatiana also thought she had been poisoned by Sergio while they were living together — allegations federal investigators confirmed in charging documents released after agents went to arrest him in the murder-for-hire plot on July 16. He shot himself to death inside the Cocoplum home he once shared with his wife and their two daughters before he could be apprehended.
In the call, Alessandra described hearing a crash and coming outside with her dog to find the armed man in the front yard of the house, where she was living with her mother. “He just pointed a gun at me,” Alessandra said.
The 911 audio doesn’t shed light on what happened after the gunman threatened Alessandra. Charging documents say Green pointed the gun at her and ordered her inside, but Alessandra told the operator she remained outside for the duration of the call.
Raymond Rafool, Tatiana Pino’s divorce lawyer, said Tuesday that the family would have no comment on the 911 call.
After the operator said that police were on the way, Alessandra said she needed to hang up to warn her mother — not knowing that Tatiana had already arrived home and driven into the backyard to escape the same gunman.
“Can I call my mom, please?” she pleaded with the operator, who told Alessandra to stay on the line until police arrived.
Audio suggests Alessandra checked her mother’s whereabouts on her phone, likely using a location-sharing app. The realization that her mother was feet away terrified Alessandra.
“Oh my gosh. My mom is here,” she said while still on the line with 911. “They might have shot her.”
Alessandra soon sensed the threat had passed, with the gunman having fled and sirens heard in the distance. “I think they’re gone,” she told the operator about three minutes and 20 seconds into the call.
A unidentified neighbor soon arrived in a golf cart, and he can be heard in the background saying he thought he had witnessed a robber fleeing the scene. That’s also when police arrived.
Alessandra still didn’t know that her mother was safe in the backyard. “I’m going to go to the front of my house,” she said in a distraught voice, “to check if my mother is there.” The call cut off before the two saw each other that morning.
Green, who is charged with stalking and use of a firearm in a violent crime, has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Richard Serafini, said last week that they would “be putting forth a vigorous defense.”
