How the FBI’s surprise raid on developer Sergio Pino’s Cocoplum home unfolded

Sergio Pino’s attorney and family members appeared somber as they were relegated behind police tape along with reporters and TV crews on a muggy morning in Coral Gables as the FBI raided the prominent developer’s house on Tuesday.

His defense lawyer, Sam Rabin, paced the perimeter of the scene with his cellphone pressed to his ear, clearly troubled. About 600 feet away from the home, Pino’s girlfriend, 55-year-old real estate broker Nancy Pastor, cried quietly on the steps of the Islands of Cocoplum clubhouse. She declined to speak with a reporter.

While the FBI’s raid that morning had come as a surprise, it wasn’t the first time federal agents had shown up to the 67-year-old Pino’s waterfront estate. On June 24, the bureau had raided the home as part of its investigation into a series of threats made against Pino’s 55-year-old estranged wife, Tatiana, who was fighting the developer in divorce court. Pastor had defended Pino on social media after the news became public.

“Baseless comments. Nothing shady about him,” she said in reply to another commenter on a @lifestyle_miami Instagram post about the FBI’s investigation.

Law enforcement had arrived shortly before sunrise Tuesday, with camouflaged SWAT agents and armored vehicles surrounding Pino’s house. They had two goals: search Pino’s home and arrest him for allegedly heading a scheme in which he instructed two separate crews of hitmen to threaten and kill Tatiana Pino.

But the plan went awry during the morning of July 16 when Pino died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Rabin has sharply criticized the level of force used by law enforcement, saying that he had volunteered to surrender his client for arrest.

When agents first arrived shortly after 6 a.m., they announced their presence over loudspeakers and ordered Pino to exit his house and surrender, according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri.

When Pino didn’t comply with their commands, Veltri said, the FBI deployed flashbangs, which produce a bright flash and explosive sound, in an effort to “gain compliance and distract subjects in order to protect SWAT agents on scene.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Pino did not respond to any of our efforts to have him surrender,” Veltri said.

According to the FBI’s account, crisis negotiators attempted to contact Pino on his phone “and even enlisted the assistance of friends, family and his attorney, all of whom were unable to make contact,” Veltri said.

But Rabin disputes that retelling, saying the FBI “never gave me any opportunity to speak with Mr. Pino.”

“I advised an FBI agent on the scene that I was Mr. Pino’s lawyer and requested the opportunity to speak with Mr. Pino. I was told to remain behind the police line and never contacted again either in person or by phone by anyone from the FBI or Coral Gables Police Dept after I made my presence known,” Rabin said in a statement. “I was standing with members of Mr. Pino’s family on the perimeter of the scene. No one contacted any of his family members on the scene.”

Rabin said that he and Pino’s relatives tried calling Pino throughout the morning but that none of their calls went through.

After an hours-long standoff, Miami SWAT agents entered the multimillion-dollar home and “slowly and methodically cleared the residence,” Veltri said. During that process, they discovered Pino dead in an upstairs bedroom, he said.

By 10:20 a.m., Pino was pronounced dead, according to the medical examiner.

The FBI did not specify whether Pino was already dead by the time they entered his home. The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office has not yet released Pino’s autopsy report.

The FBI did not hear a gunshot on Tuesday morning, Veltri said, meaning they don’t know when Pino fired the fatal shot.

“The evidence has shown that we believe he was alive when we arrived on scene,” Veltri said.

He declined to specify any other people — such as household employees — who were at Pino’s residence Tuesday morning but said “everybody else that was on property was compliant with the FBI SWAT team’s commands.”

Veltri said it was his call to use a SWAT team for the operation.

“I stand by that decision,” he said.

‘Disturbed at the level of brazenness’

In the days after the FBI raid, Pino’s attorney has accused law enforcement of using excessive force.

“The arrest was designed to isolate, intimidate and frighten him into submission,” Rabin said in a statement. “They accomplished their goal.”

But law enforcement officials have defended their strategy, saying the allegations against Pino warranted their response, in part because they feared Tatiana Pino could be in imminent danger.

If investigators knew that a gang member or organized crime leader, for example, was going to kill an “innocent bystander,” said Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, “we would show up and arrest them. And we don’t apologize for that.”

Less than a month ago, according to charging documents, a crew of hitmen tried to fatally shoot Tatiana Pino outside her Pinecrest home — an event that accelerated the murder-for-hire investigation.

Sergio Pino hired that crew, with the instruction to kill Tatiana before the couple’s next divorce hearing, Lapointe said. The next day, on June 24, the FBI raided Sergio Pino’s home for the first time.

“We knew he was trying to kill his wife,” Lapointe said. “What if you give him notice and he decides, ‘You know what, I’m going to speed up the process now. Since the two crews couldn’t kill [Tatiana], I’m going to kill her myself. I’m going to figure out a way and kill her myself.’ That could have happened.”

In total, law enforcement has arrested nine people belonging to two different crews that were allegedly hired to kill Tatiana. The first group of individuals — including Sergio Pino’s part-time employee — was arrested in March. Yet Pino proceeded to hire a second crew to kill his estranged wife, according to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“He was not intimidated by the fact that law enforcement and the FBI was actively investigating him,” Lapointe said. “That didn’t bother him at all. In fact, law enforcement — to the extent we can discuss this at all — felt somewhat disturbed at the level of brazenness that he had, even though he knew they were after him, even though he knew they were onto him.”

Before his death, Pino had denied any involvement in the threats against his wife. Rabin said earlier this week that he “was never contacted about the new allegations just as I was never contacted to surrender my client” prior to the FBI’s Tuesday raid.

“Although I have not seen any of the evidence that the government claims to have, the narrative that they are putting forth is contrary to the person and character of Sergio Pino,” Rabin said Wednesday.

Disputes over crisis negotiations

From behind the police tape, Rabin says he and Pino’s relatives were unable to get ahold of the 67-year-old. None of their calls were going through, something he found suspect.

“The only logical conclusion is that the FBI was using a device to prevent Mr. Pino from making or receiving phone calls while the crisis was ongoing,” Rabin alleged.

The FBI declined to respond to Rabin’s allegations.

Rabin also said that Pino “was prepared to confront the government’s case in court. He never indicated otherwise, and he certainly never mentioned an intention to harm himself or anyone else.”

Men are more three times more likely than women to die by suicide, a risk that is further elevated when a man has access to a gun, said Rafis Nin, a psychotherapist and the board chair of the Southeast Florida chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Nin said men are also more likely than women to cope with feelings of failure or shame by turning to suicide.

Justin Paperny, co-founder of the firm White Collar Advice, said it’s not uncommon for his clients to grapple with depression and hopelessness while under investigation or facing criminal charges. Paperny, who himself went to prison for financial crimes, said he has had multiple clients die by suicide while their cases were pending.

“It’s easy to give up and think there’s no way out,” Paperny said.

Miami Herald reporters Chuck Rabin and Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.