More girls on boat testify for defense in George Pino deadly crash trial

Grethel Aguila, Miami Herald on Jun 16, 2026

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MIAMI — Two of the girls who were on the boat operated by Doral real estate broker George Pino when it crashed, killing a 17-year-old girl, described the moments leading up to the crash, saying the ride was like countless others they had been on as frequent boaters.

“It felt like nothing out of the ordinary,” Claudia Portocarrero, 21, told Pino’s defense attorney Jeanelle Gomez.

Before the defense began presenting witnesses, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez denied Pino’s motion for judgment of acquittal, which allows a judge to find a defendant not guilty without sending the case to a jury. Attorney Howard Srebnick made the motion Monday evening after prosecutors rested their case.

Such a motion is rarely granted and requires a judge to find that no rational jury could find the defendant guilty.

Pino, 54, is on trial on charges of manslaughter and vessel homicide in the Sept. 4, 2022, boat crash. Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, 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.

Pino was driving his wife, Cecilia, their daughter and 11 of his daughter’s friends back to Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo that night from an afternoon outing on Elliott Key. The day on the Elliott Key sandbar was a celebration for the daughter’s 18th birthday, and there was a dinner planned at Ocean Reef at 9 p.m.

More girls on the boat testify

Portocarrero, who said she is a cousin of the Pinos, testified that she had consumed alcohol, including a seltzer and beer, and was buzzed. Natalia Reed, 21, also said she had two or three alcoholic seltzers and felt buzzed while out on the sandbar.

Both Portocarrero and Reed, who grew up with Pino’s daughter, said they didn’t see Pino drinking — and that he didn’t seem intoxicated.

Portocarrero said that when she opened her eyes, she saw Pino, who she believed to be dead because blood was gushing out of his head. Reed, too, witnessed Pino’s injuries but added that she later saw him gripping onto the boat with his hands.

When asked by prosecutor Laura Adams, Portocarrero testified that there was nothing in Pino’s line of sight that would have blocked his vision moments before the crash. She teared up on the stand when Adams showed her a photo of Lucy.

On Monday, the state rested after calling a former member of the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office to testify about the extent of Lucy’s injuries. Dr. David Fintan Garavan said Lucy’s official cause of death was drowning. But the girl, he said, also suffered significant blunt force trauma from the impact of the boat crashing into the steel channel marker.

Among the last witnesses prosecutors called was boating expert Lt. Paul Alber, who testified that Pino traveled the length of three football fields — going 47 mph — in the nine seconds before the crash. Alber walked jurors through Pino’s trajectory on the day of the crash in a series of maps created from GPS data. Alber inspected Pino’s 29-foot Robalo and said he was contacted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the lead investigating agency, the day after the crash to analyze the boat’s GPS.

Alber was recalled to the stand by the defense Tuesday. Srebnick peppered Alber with questions about how the channel does not have posted speed limits and how the law does not require that passengers on the boat wear life jackets.