Source: NBC6 South Florida
A judge on Wednesday ordered George Pino to surrender and be booked into jail on a charge of vessel homicide/operate in reckless manner in the Sept. 4, 2022 crash.
Pino, 54, was driving the 29-foot vessel with 14 passengers on board when he crashed into a channel marker near Boca Chita Key, according to prosecutors and officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The boat capsized and all the passengers, including several teenagers, were thrown into the water.
The crash killed 17-year-old Luciana Fernandez, a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami, and injured most of the passengers on the boat, including Katerina Puig, who was 18 at the time and was left permanently disabled.
Pino was initially charged with misdemeanor counts including careless boating but the homicide charge was filed last month. He has pleaded not guilty.
An FWC report said 61 empty alcoholic bottles and cans, one empty champagne bottle and a half-consumed bottle of liquor were found on the boat, but a final FWC incident report released almost a year after the crash said Pino showed no signs of impairment when officers responded.
New body camera footage of Pino speaking with FWC officers after the crash, released last week, showed Pino admitting to having two beers but declining to give a blood sample. Authorities said he also refused a breathalyzer.
But an attorney for Fernandez’s family said prosecutors re-evaluated the case and filed the new charge after a new key witness came forward.
The witness, a Miami-Dade firefighter who responded to the boat crash, told prosecutors alcohol was a factor in the crash, the attorney said.
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