The head of the state agency that investigates fatal boat crashes has repeatedly defended his agency’s probe into a high-profile crash that killed a Miami girl and seriously injured another. But emails obtained by the Herald show that Rodney Barreto, the chair of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, wondered whether officers messed up when they didn’t test George Pino, the man who crashed the boat, for alcohol.
Barreto posed the question to Col. Roger Young, executive director of the FWC, on Oct. 31, the same day Miami-Dade prosecutors charged Pino, 54, with felony vessel homicide, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Pino, who is awaiting trial, was initially charged with three misdemeanors in the Sept. 4, 2022 crash, but prosecutors reopened the case after a Herald investigation showed key witnesses weren’t interviewed.
The crash led to the death of 17-year-oldLuciana ‘Lucy’ Fernandez and severely injured her Our Lady of Lourdes Academy classmate, Katerina ‘Katy’ Puig, now 20, who is still recovering from her brain injury.
Barreto sent the email to Young after reading a Miami Herald article that day about Pino being charged with the felony. The article detailed how neither FWC investigators nor the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office had followed up with key eyewitnesses on the scene the night of the crash. The witnesses spoke to the Herald and told a different story from what the FWC said in its report leading to the misdemeanor charges…