The 18th birthday is a once-in-a-lifetime landmark, but celebrating it on a boat turned deadly for a Miami family. 54-year-old George Pino, a real estate developer from Florida, is on trial for the vessel homicide and murder of the 17-year-old friend of his daughter, Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez. Witness testimonies in the case detailed a fatal incident on the day of the incident.
Prosecutors claimed Pino and his wife allowed underage girls to drink alcohol.
It was a sunny day on September 4, 2022, when Pino and his wife decided to take their daughter and her 11 friends to a sandbar on the family boat to celebrate their daughter Cecilia’s 18th birthday. Prosecutors alleged that the accused’s wife let the underage girls drink alcohol, and the father was himself drunk when the incident happened, via COURT TV.
A day of celebration turned ugly when Pino “accelerated through the ‘Cutter Bank’ channel, going from 43 miles per hour to 47 miles per hour before hitting a channel marker.” Prosecutors also claimed that the accused drove past the same marker several times but never crashed. GPS data also showed that he was driving on the wrong side of the channel.
The impact of the crash caused some of Cecilia’s friends to get off the boat before the vehicle submerged underwater. While Lucy was killed, another friend, Katerina Puig, suffered life-altering injuries.
Eyewitnesses deny allegations that Pino was drunk while handling the boat.
Pino’s daughter’s friends were called in for testimony. They denied that Pino showed signs of intoxication or unsafe driving. One of the friends, Natalia Reed, said the friends were happy and enjoying their time together before the incident. “I had gone on the boat with Mr. Pino many times before the accident, so I don’t remember feeling it going any faster than our previous trips,” she said…