Police say alcohol played no role in fatal boat crash, but bodycam video raises questions

A key finding in a state police report into a south Biscayne Bay boat crash that took the life of a teenage girl and permanently disabled another last year is under question following body camera footage released to the Miami Herald this week.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigator wrote in his report that the boat captain — prominent Miami real estate broker George Pino — declined to take a blood alcohol test because his lawyer wasn’t around.

But the officer’s body camera footage shows Pino providing a different reason while declining the test: He says he had two beers that day.

A day later, investigators found 61 empty alcohol bottles and cans on his boat. Four days after that, a preliminary report stated that alcohol wasn’t involved in the crash. And in August, a final report said the same thing: no alcohol involved.

Bodycam footage

In the video, released to the Miami Herald after a public records request, Pino is clearly distressed about the incident. He leans onto the center console of a Fish and Wildlife agency boat, breathes heavily, and repeatedly asks the investigating officer how the girls are doing.

When the FWC investigator, William Thompson, asked Pino if he would submit two vials of blood, his immediate answer was: “No. I had two beers.”

Thompson, in the video, does not press Pino to submit to a test. The investigator repeatedly tells Pino during the course of the 10-minute conversation that drinking alcohol on a boat isn’t illegal, nor is consuming it and operating a boat. And he stressed that the test was “voluntary” and “up to you.”

“I’m just asking since there was an accident with injuries, I always like to ask consent from my operators to give blood, just so we can draw that out that there was no alcohol involved in a boating accident,” the state officer said.

But in the recorded conversation, Pino, 52, doesn’t cite his attorney not being there as a reason for refusing to submit blood — as was stated in the report dismissing alcohol as a factor in the crash.

Thompson, in his report, wrote: “I requested a voluntary blood draw and George Pino declined due to not having an attorney present.” Nothing further is mentioned in the document about the test or Pino’s stated reason for declining it.

Pino was charged with three misdemeanor counts of careless boating. Had investigators determined that alcohol was involved, the charges would have been far steeper.

Families react to the video

The footage was released to the Herald on Tuesday, weeks after the state agency released the summary incident report that concluded alcohol didn’t play a part in the tragedy that took the life of 17-year-old Luciana Fernandez and left Katerina Puig, now 18, requiring a lifetime of medical care.

Luciana’s parents, Andres and Melissa Fernandez, said that they are disappointed after watching the video, and they now question the legitimacy of the criminal investigation.

“This just points out another aspect of the investigation that is extremely disturbing to our family,” the couple said in a statement on Wednesday.

”As we have grieved over the past year, our family placed confidence in law enforcement, including the FWC and the State Attorney’s Office, to uncover the truth and act in good faith. These latest inconsistencies between the final report and bodycam footage make it very difficult to believe that law enforcement carried out its investigation in a thorough and proper manner. At this point, we have more questions than answers.”

Rudolfo and Kathya Puig, the parents of Katerina Puig, filed a lawsuit against George Pino and wife, Cecilia Pino, in March arguing, among other accusations, that they provided the teenagers under their watch alcohol the day of the crash. The Pinos denied the accusation in court filings earlier this month.

After viewing the video with the conversation between Thompson and George Pino, Ivan Cabrera, one of the Puig family’s attorneys, said it bolsters the argument that Pino received “preferential treatment” during the investigation “that no one else would have received under similar circumstances.”

“The conclusion one can draw after watching this is there are many inconsistencies between the report and what transpired in real time,” Cabrera said. “And, the inevitable conclusion is Mr. Pino was intoxicated to the extent that his normal faculties were impaired. There is no other explanation into how someone so familiar with that waterway could strike a stationary object at 47 mph in broad daylight with no obstructions to visibility.”

Pino’s attorney, Andrew Mescolotto, didn’t respond to emailed questions from the Miami Herald about the body camera footage.

Police defend boat crash investigation

Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, defended the investigation to the Miami Herald, stating in an Aug. 17 email that investigator Thompson specializes in detecting signs of drug and alcohol use, and determined that Pino showed no signs of impairment.

Barreto said that not only did Thompson say he didn’t observe any signs of impairment from Pino, “neither did any of the other officers at the scene.”

“Even so, he still requested a voluntary blood draw, which was refused,” Barreto said. “The law does not enable our officers to compel a blood draw or breath test without probable cause. No one admitted in interviews to consuming alcohol.”

When asked about the discrepancies between the report and the body camera-recorded interview, agency spokesman Rob Klepper responded: “The FWC will not be offering additional comment on the report or the body worn camera footage at this time. Please keep in mind that it is possible that information included in the report may not have been captured by bodycam.”

What happened that day

The recorded conversation between Thompson and Pino happened around 9 p.m., about 2 1/2 hours after the broker had crashed his boat into a fixed channel marker in Cutter Bank in the Intracoastal Waterway. All 14 people on the boat — Pino and his wife and 12 teenage girls — were ejected into the water, investigators say.

Several boaters rushed to help, followed by police and fire-rescue boat crews.

Paramedics flew Luciana Fernandez to Kendall Regional Hospital, where she died the next day. Katerina Puig was taken to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near South Miami with severe injuries.

Parents of both teens were outraged when the nearly year-long investigation resulted in three counts of misdemeanor careless boating for Pino, despite the final report stating that police found 61 empty alcohol bottles and cans on his boat the day after they pulled it from the water, along with an empty liquor bottle and half-consumed bottle of champagne.

“As the information is becoming public, it is becoming abundantly clear that alcohol was a major factor in this accident. We are left with even more questions as to how the investigators were unable to connect the very apparent trail of bread crumbs, or in this case, trail of empty alcohol containers,” said Cabrera, the family attorney.

The families also faulted the conclusions of the FWC and Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office after investigators stated in their report that Pino’s excuse for hitting the channel marker — that a larger boat coming the other way made him lose control of his vessel — couldn’t be verified by anyone on his boat nor by other witnesses on the water that day.

Ed Griffith, spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, defended the charges based on the evidence made available by Fish and Wildlife.

“We have what the police agency supplies us,” Griffith said Wednesday.

‘I prefer not to’

The conversation about the blood sample began with Thompson explaining to Pino that he is not legally required to comply with the request, but it was procedure to ask in accidents involving serious injury.

After Pino immediately declines, citing his consumption of two beers, Thompson responds that it is legal to drink moderately and operate a boat.

“It’s not illegal to drink a couple of beers and drive,” Thompson said.

Pino then said: “I feel perfect in the way that my mind was. I know what happened. I’ve been around boats forever. I’ve done that ride a thousand times.”

Pino was driving his boat that day from Elliott Key in Biscayne Bay back to his vacation home in the gated Key Largo community of Ocean Reef. He was celebrating his daughter’s 18th birthday. The interview took place back on Elliott Key, which police and paramedics were using as a base of operations following the crash.

Thompson again reiterated that “you’re allowed to drink alcohol on a boat,” before noticing Pino’s arm was bleeding. Thomson got a paramedic to bandage the arm.

“Come on, bro. I need to get that looked at,” Thompson said.

He also told Pino that he was concerned that he was breathing heavily.

About 10 minutes later, Thompson again asks Pino if he would voluntarily submit a blood sample.

“I’m fine,” Pino said, prompting Thompson to respond, “If it’s a ‘no,’ I push [the consent form] away and we start talking about the boat. I got to check this off.”

“I prefer not to,” Pino said. And then the conversation on that topic ended, according to the bodycam video.