Lucy Fernandez’s dad and girls on boat testify about fatal crash in Pino trial
Sitting at the witness stand, Andres Fernandez, the father of Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, recounted the last time he hugged his daughter.
Fernandez last embraced his daughter four years ago, when he and his wife left Lucy at Elliott Key with George Pino, his wife and other friends. Lucy, Fernandez said, asked him and his wife, Melissa, to come visit her while she was on the water.
“She gave me a hug, and I remember it clearly because it was the last time I held her alive,” Fernandez said as his eyes watered on Tuesday.
Pino, 54, is on trial on charges of manslaughter and vessel homicide in a Sept. 4, 2022, boat crash. Lucy, 17, was killed, and Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 21, another passenger, was left with physical and neurological disabilities. Dozens of Lucy’s loved ones and Pino’s supporters tightly packed both sides of the large courtroom.
Lucy was with Pino’s family and two other families, their boats tied up at Elliott Key in Biscayne Bay to celebrate the 18th birthday of Pino’s daughter. . Lucy and 11 of her teen friends went to Elliott Key from the Ocean Reef Club, a gated community in north Key Largo.
Defense attorney Howard Srebnick concluded his opening statement to the jury on Tuesday morning after Pino on Monday caused the trial to be paused because he sobbed and breathed heavily. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez ordered the jury removed from the courtroom.
READ MORE: After prosecutor lays out boat crash case, George Pino causes trial to pause
Miami Fire Rescue did not comment on Pino’s condition. After walking into court on Tuesday, Pino told his defense team he was “feeling good this morning. I got a good night’s rest.”
During his opening statement, Srebnick said Pino was distracted for unknown reasons when he crashed his boat into a steel channel marker. But that, the attorney said, does not amount to recklessness.
“Mr. Pino was not thrill-seeking. He was not speeding. He was not doing doughnuts. He was not racing any other boats,” Srebnick said. “This was, pure and simple, an accident.”
Minutes before Monday’s interruption, prosecutor Laura Adams had finished her opening statements, which consisted of more than 45 minutes of her laying out that Pino acted recklessly up to and when he slammed his 29-foot Robalo center console into the steel channel marker, sending himself and all 13 of his passengers into the water.
“This was not a mere accident or momentarily lapse,” the prosecutor said. “Lucy is dead because the defendant failed to do the most basic things the rules on the water require.”
Father’s tearful testimony
Andres Fernandez told the jury he arrived at the Elliott Key sandbar about 4 p.m. and tied up to another friend’s boat. He made a rum and club soda, hung out for about an hour, and he and Melissa Fernandez headed back to Ocean Reef to get ready to watch Florida State’s opening football game with his father that evening.
But Andres Fernandez never made it to his father’s apartment to watch the game. As he and his wife were getting ready, he got word that Pino was involved in a boat crash.
The Fernandezes hopped back on their boat and searched for the accident scene. They arrived soon after pulling out of Angel Fish Creek, near Ocean Reef. Andres described a chaotic scene, with police lights and boats on the water.
Fernandez said he saw Puig on the platform of a boat, and “she was in bad shape.” They noticed other girls on a boat, but they did not see their daughter. He and Melissa Fernandez screamed, “Where’s Lucy?”
The Fernandezes were eventually told Lucy was taken to a hospital but were not told which one, Fernandez testified. They eventually went to Kendall Regional Hospital and showed a receptionist a photo of Lucy. Staff confirmed Lucy was there.
Inside the hospital room, they discovered “every parent’s worst nightmare,” Fernandez said. Lucy had tubes all over her body, and a nurse was trying to establish a heartbeat. Lucy died at 6 a.m. the following day.
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Fernandez said he and Melissa Fernandez saw something by their daughter’s head. It turned out to be a piece of fiberglass from Pino’s boat. They tried to remove it, he testified, and were told by a police officer to leave it because it was evidence.
“At that point, Meli and I looked at each other and said, ‘Our daughter is a piece of evidence,’ ” Fernandez said in tears.
Girls on boat testify
Camila Alvarez, 21, was one of the passengers on Pino’s boat, and a friend of Pino’s daughter, Cecilia, as well as Lucy and Puig. Early into Alvarez’s testimony, Adams played a video of the girls singing and dancing to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” while they were at the sandbar.
Alvarez told the prosecutor that she drank heavily that day, saying she had 10 hard lemonades. The alcohol, she said, was provided by the Pinos.
When Jeanelle Gomez, one of Pino’s defense attorneys, asked if she saw Pino drinking alcohol that day, Alvarez said she did not.
However, Carolina Monterrey — who was one of the girls on the boat — testified that she saw Pino drinking a beer when they were at the sandbar. Monterrey, now 21, said she drank from the stash of alcohol on Pino’s boat and felt buzzed.
Alvarez, now going into her senior year at Florida State University, said she actually remained on the boat before it capsized, as did Pino, who she said was unconscious to the point she thought he died. Alvarez said she wasn’t injured in the crash, although her head hurt afterward. Monterrey, who is now a senior at Syracuse University, said she sustained minor injuries.
Both Alvarez and Monterrey testified that they didn’t feel unsafe as Pino operated the vessel.
Crash was not a crime: defense
Standing at the lectern in front of the jury on Tuesday, Srebnick said that Sunday in 2022 was “an ideal day for boating.” The seas were calm, and there was no wind or rain.
Pino had made the voyage through Cutter Bank several times on the “well-built boat,” Srebnick said. But that day, Pino got distracted nine seconds before he slammed his boat into the steel channel marker.
Pino momentarily “lost situational awareness,” but that does not mean he acted recklessly or was culpably negligent, the attorney said. As Srebnick addressed the jury, Pino closed his eyes, as if crying, and shook his head.
“But even so, somebody died,” Srebnick said. “Mr. Pino will have to live with that.”
Although Pino was traveling fast and on the wrong side of the channel, Srebnick countered that neither is illegal. Pino, Srebnick added, also had the required number of life preservers, and the boat was not overloaded.
During his opening, Srebnick focused on why Pino told investigators he crashed because the wake of another boat caused him to lose control. No witness, including people on his Robalo or in other boats behind him, saw what the prosecutor previously called the “phantom boat.”
Pino’s recollection of the crash, Srebnick said, was affected by a traumatic brain injury that he sustained. The head injury caused Pino to have “a false memory” that was about how the crash unfolded and that he “believed to be true,” Srebnick said.
On Tuesday, Brent Reitman, an attorney with the firm hired by the Puig family to sue Pino and his wife, testified that more than a year after the crash, Pino again said the reason he crashed was because of the other boat. He wrote that narrative in a sworn statement in the civil case.
While out at Elliot Key before the crash, the adults and some of the children on the boat consumed alcohol, Srebnick said. Witnesses observed Pino drinking a beer, and he told FWC investigator Lt. William Thompson he had “two beers.”
However, Srebnick pointed out that several people on the scene, including Thompson, concluded Pino was not impaired.
Srebnick also said the 61 empty or partially empty bottles of alcohol found on Pino’s boat when it was pulled out of the water were on the vessel because Pino’s wife gathered them from other boaters partying with them to avoid littering.
Facing the jury, Srebnick repeated that the crash was a tragedy — and was not caused by reckless or culpably negligent behavior.
“All it would have taken would be a slight turn of the wheel, and none of us would be here,” Srebnick said. “... The evidence will show that Mr. Pino was human and that something happened that we may never know. ... Why was he distracted for those nine seconds?”
‘Look under the boat’
The state also brought a man named Hilary Candela as a witness. He was on his friend James Gassenheimer’s boat that day, and they came across the crash moments after it happened. Candela has known Pino since childhood and recognized him in the water clinging to the bow of the overturned Robalo, he told jurors.
As several people were yelling they couldn’t find Lucy, Candela said he thought she might be underneath Pino’s boat. He told jurors he yelled to Pino to look under the boat, but he was “in shock” and “dazed” and did not respond.
He then yelled again, “George, look under the boat, or I will,” Candela told jurors. Pino then went under the vessel and came up with Lucy, Candela said. Gassenheimer, who knows CPR, jumped in the water to help Pino get Lucy to another civilian boat, on which he performed CPR on her with other witnesses.
A paramedic then took over CPR, and the boat carrying Lucy was taken to shore.
Candela, who also knows the Puig family, saw Katy Puig and said she was unconscious and laying on the platform of a large boat. Candela called Katy’s father, Rudy Puig, to tell him what happened.
Candela was one of three witnesses who told the Miami Herald that no one from the FWC nor Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office ever contacted them again during the course of the original criminal investigation.
This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Lucy Fernandez’s dad and girls on boat testify about fatal crash in Pino trial."
