Injured girl’s family ‘outraged’ at minor charges in fatal Florida Keys boat crash probe

A boat crash in Biscayne Bay over last year’s Labor Day weekend killed a 17-year-old girl and permanently disabled another teen, and the surviving girl’s family is “outraged” that the vessel’s operator is being charged with only two counts of careless boating, misdemeanors they are calling “a slap on the wrist.”

The parents of Katerina Puig, the now-18-year-old girl who suffered serious permanent injuries when the boat she was on with 13 other people, including 11 other teenage girls, crashed into a channel marker near Ocean Reef Club in the Upper Keys, saw investigators’ final report last week.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the agency that investigated the case, released the report Friday night.

Just as the Puig’s attorneys told the Miami Herald prior to police releasing the report, it states 61 empty alcoholic beverages were found on the boat when FWC officers inspected it, as well as a half-empty bottle of liquor and an empty bottle of champagne, an investigator with the agency stated in the report.

Nevertheless, FWC officers decided at the scene not to test if the vessel’s operator, 52-year-old Miami real estate broker George Pino, had consumed alcohol that day.

The investigator wrote in the report that he asked Pino if he would consent to blood being drawn to determine if he’d consumed alcohol, but he declined “due to not having an attorney present.”

The agency at the time of the incident ruled out alcohol as a factor in the crash, as does the final report.

“As part of this investigation, alcohol was not considered to be a contributing factor to this accident,” the FWC officer, not named in the report, wrote. “Pino showed no signs of impairment when officers responded nor when I arrived on scene.”

A witness from the boat said she saw Pino consume one alcoholic beverage while the group was on a sandbar prior to them returning to Ocean Reef, according to the report.

Investigators also says Pino’s 29-foot Robalo boat was cruising at about 50 mph through an Intracoastal Waterway channel before smacking into the fixed Marker 15.

“It seems that the FWC was unwilling to even explore the possibility that the operator of the vehicle was under the influence of alcoholic beverages to the extent that his normal faculties were impaired,” one of the Puig’s attorney’s, Brent Reitman, told the Herald.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office over the course of its nearly yearlong investigation also never subpoenaed blood samples from Pino and his wife, Cecilia, who were both hospitalized after the tragic Sept. 4, 2022, crash in south Biscayne Bay, according to the Puig’s lawyers.

“When you fail to appropriately do a proper investigation at the scene, you’re forced to work backwards,” Reitman said. “This is a conclusion driven by inaction from the beginning.”

The State Attorney’s Office released a statement Friday afternoon definitively stating Pino “was not impaired by drugs or alcohol.” A spokesman for the agency said in response to a follow-up question on how the determination was made that George Pino was not intoxicated that it was due to what witnesses on the boat said.

“I suggest that you get the detailed investigative information from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigator’s report,” Ed Griffith said. “However, sworn statements provided by individuals on the boat provided important testimony on this significant issue.”

The report clearly states there was dozens of containers of consumed alcohol on the vessel, however.

George Pino’s lawyer, Andrew Mescolotto, released the following statement Friday:

“The FWC and the State Attorney’s Office have conclusively confirmed this was not an alcohol-related accident. Multiple witnesses observed that another boat created an extra-large wake causing a loss of control. George and Cecilia Pino are devastated by the passing of Lucy and the serious injuries to Katy and others. The Pinos have already pledged their life savings to compensate and provide medical support for everyone affected by this horrible accident. They continue to pray every day for each person and family that was involved.”

Reitman said that not only did witnesses tell police Pino had been seen holding a beer that day, “there was enough alcohol on that boat to intoxicate a small army.”

A spokesperson for Andres and Meli Fernandez, the parents of Luciana, the 17-year-old girl who died that day, issued the following statement upon hearing the FWC’s conclusion and the State Attorney’s Office’s decision not to seek more serious charges against the Pinos.

“The Fernandezes are devastated and distraught with the findings and conclusions of the report, and need some time to gather their thoughts,” said Olga Martinez, the family spokesperson.

Both Luciana Fernandez and Katerina Puig attended Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Southwest Miami-Dade, where Katerina was a standout soccer player.

The 12 girls on the boat that day either attended Lourdes, Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Coconut Grove or Westminster Christian School in Palmetto Bay.

The tragedy shook the South Florida Catholic school community.

Puig’s parents, Kathya and Rodolfo Fernando Puig, filed a lawsuit against George Pino in March claiming, among other accusations, that he provided alcohol to the girls on their outing to Elliott Key, where the group was celebrating the Pinos’ daughter’s 18th birthday.

The FWC did not respond to questions asking how its officers concluded that George Pino was not intoxicated in the moments leading up to the crash, and instead releasing a statement saying its investigation was “comprehensive.”

“This boating accident hit the Miami community at its core,” Maj. Alberto Maza, South Region Bravo Regional commander, said in a statement. “So many lives were forever changed in an instant. Our hearts still break for the victims of this tragedy. Our investigators have completed a comprehensive investigation into the accident, and hope that the answers provided in the report can provide some small measure of peace.”

Pino was driving the boat back to his home at Ocean Reef Club, the ultra exclusive gated community in Key Largo, when the crash occurred about 6:30 p.m. that day.

Pino had told investigators that day that a large boat coming the opposite direction threw a wake that caused him to lose control of the Robalo.

But a petition Pino filed in federal court in March to limit any lawsuit payouts resulting from the crash to the value of his boat elaborates on what Pino said happened: His boat, according to his attorney, “began to turn unexpectedly on its own and put itself on a course roughly headed toward navigational marker 15.”

Pino tried to “steer and correct course, but was unable to prevent an allision” with the channel marker, Mescolotto said. The starboard, or right, side of the boat took on extensive damage before the vessel capsized.

Allision is a term for when a vessel strikes a stationary object.

All of the teens were sitting on seats at the bow of the boat “signing and dancing” right before impact, according to the report.

After falling into the water, Pino, who was bleeding from the head, swam back to the wreckage, and was able to rescue one of the teens and transfer her to a boater who stopped to help, according to the court document.

The Puigs’ attorney, however, cast doubt Friday on whether there ever was another boat, saying no witnesses gave statements that they ever saw another vessel coming toward the Robalo in the channel.

“There’s zero clarification or corroboration that this phantom boat even existed,” Reitman said.

The FWC investigator said one witness said she “did not see any other vessels prior to the accident and that she did not feel any sudden movements of the vessel.”