The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Booze, Lies & Videotapes

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

George Pino is a renown real estate developer. Pino was operating a boat that crashed into a channel mile marker three years ago that resulted in multiple severe injuries and the death of 17 year old Lucy Fernandez. But the "friends and family plan" may have gave Pino an advantage in the investigation. Joel Denaro, a Miami defense attorney who is representing Lucy Fernandez's family as he is a friend of the family, joins Billy Corben to discuss the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. Assistant State Attorney Laura Adams told a judge this morning that the state has added a new charge of manslaughter against developer George Pino. On behalf of Mr. Pino, we will enter our plea, if not guilty, stand on all the previously filed pleadings in this case. This is now an addition to the felony charge he was already facing of vessel homicide. Pino was operating a boat on Labor Day weekend nearly three years ago when it slammed into a channel marker near Bocachita Key. 17-year-old Lucy Fernandez was killed.

Her friend, Cathy Buig, was left with permanent injuries. I guess when I hit one of the ways. Pino's daughter and 11 other teen girls were on that boat. Booze, lies, and videotape. What seemed to be a tragic accident has turned into what could be one of the most surreal, sorted, and scandalous cover-ups in the history of the Miami criminal justice system. And it is torn the town apart. George Pino is a real estate mogul, very prominent, very successful. His daughter was celebrating her 18th birthday, senior at Lords, Our Lady of

Lords, a very elite, prominent Catholic girls' school. A lot of the Miami royalty sends their daughters there they went to their vacation home an ocean reef a very luxurious exclusive club in the florida keys where they went out on their boat george pino his wife their daughter about a dozen of her girlfriends and classmates all about 17 years old most seniors starting their senior year at lords in september of 2022 almost exactly three years ago when his 29 foot Raballo, a kind of center console, like fishing-style boat, crashed right into a stationary metal mile marker, killing Lucy Fernandez, 17, severely injuring several other girls, including Katerina Puig, who is permanently brain damaged and obviously tearing a whole lot

of families to pieces. But what happened when the FWC came in is, where this all goes dangerously awry. This so-called investigation appears to be either the work of pure incompetence or utter and total corruption in what we know in Miami as the Friends and Family Plan here. You can guess what that means. We talked about it before. Joel DeNaro is a Miami criminal defense attorney and he represents Lucy Fernandez's family, her parents. And Joel, I got to start there. Why do the, does the family, the parents of the victim in this tragedy, need a criminal defense attorney? How does that happen?

Hey, Billy, how are you? Thank you for having me. Andy Fernandez and I have been good friends since we began work together at the public defender's office. And so, you know, we went to each other's weddings. We're good friends. Our wives are friends. And so on September 4th, 2022, when the news alert came across my phone and it said that my friend's daughter, Lucy, may have died in this devastating boating accident, the report also said that there was another boat involved and that George Pino was traveling to Ocean Reef and he lost control of his boat because he hit the larger boats wave. and then that other boat left the scene.

So, you know, seeing this alert and seeing this news, obviously it was devastating. My friend's daughter has been killed, but I became very angry, obviously. And I think everyone's anger was directed toward the other boat that the reports say, and even other reports after that were claiming that there was another boat that had caused this accident. and then had left everyone for dead, essentially. So obviously, when you have such tragedy like that, I obviously went to the funeral and was supportive. It's a very, very difficult thing.

I get a call from my friend Andy eight months later after the FWC report was finished. And in the FWC report, it says, actually, there was no other boat. And that they were going to recommend that they charge George Pino with careless homicide and careless injury to Catalina Pree. To be clear, Joel, the FWC is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. These are game wardens.

Who are these guys and what are they doing out there investigating a homicide? Well, you know, there's Metro Dade out there also and there's FWC and FWC, it is my understanding that FWC just assumed control and took the lead on the investigation. But I think they investigate the boating homicides on the water. I think that's one of their functions. For me, as you introduce me, yes, I am a criminal defense attorney. I've never been a victim advocate before. And my friend Andy asked me if he could come over with his wife, of course.

They came over and they said, look, Joel, we just want to know if we're crazy. You know, we just don't feel right about this. Because to be clear, to be clear, Joel, so first thing you learn is that there was, this is a ghost boat. Whatever boat that George Pino was talking about, that cut him off, that created a wake that moved his boat into this metal mile marker didn't exist, number one. And number two, they're saying, charge him with a misdemeanor, basically a slap on the wrist, a parking ticket. And so these are two pretty significant pieces of information. What did they think happen? Do they think Pino lied about the boat?

Right. So there's two questions there. They charged George Pino with three second degree misdemeanors. So each misdemeanor is punishable by 60 days in jail. He has no criminal priors. And did the family think that there was no other boat? There was no other boat. George Pino struck mile marker, channel marker,

15. And so what we learn is, is that this story about the other boat took place in front of channel marker 14. And unbeknownst to anyone, there was a camera affixed to channel marker 14 pointing north towards Miami. A smuggling camera, basically, right? It was an alien smuggling camera. And no one knew it was there. And when they checked the camera, there was no evidence of any other boat. So that was contained in the FWC report. And when I saw it, you know, my first thought was how was he not being charged with something related to fabricating a boat, a phantom boat? You know, false information during the investigation of a crime came to mind, obstruction of justice. But none of those were charged. And wasn't there a addition? Was there GPS data from his

boat as well that disproved his ghost boat theory? The GPS on the boat has cookies so each, after each time you use your boat, it shows you your route and his route showed him driving straight into

channel marker 15. Right, so nothing pushed him that way, nothing diverted him that way he wasn't thrust to divert, yeah. No evasive, no evasive movements as he described. to FWC.

I believe he said he saw the wake rather than decelerating. He increased his speed from 45 miles an hour, I believe to 48 miles an hour. And he says that he turned left, and then he turned right and lost control of the steering and struck the channel marker, which caused the boat to capsize. Everyone on the boat was thrown off the boat,

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21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction, void in Ontario. Bonus bets expires seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.com slash audio. Joel, there's three words in this. report that took eight months to write, which I imagine would mean it was an extensively investigated report. The investigator from Florida Wild from FWC and interviewed all the

witnesses and everybody involved and found that there was no alcohol involved. I want to roll this clip. Investigators did not believe alcohol was a factor despite finding 61 empty alcoholic bottles and cans on board, along with one empty champagne bottle and another half consumed a bottle of liquor. Pino, who was celebrating his teenage daughter's birthday with her and her friends and his wife declined a voluntary blood draw. No liquor involved or no alcohol involved, and yet what you heard at the end there was George Pino audio from a body cam video where he admits to having two beers. He admits to drinking. FWC found, once they flipped this capsized boat back over right side again, all of

this booze in a trash can on the boat, the empty booze containers, over 60 of them. Joel, what happened? How is there no alcohol involved in a report and when this guy was on a boat full of booze? So when Andy and Melly came to my house, they had actually, they're, Lucy's aunt is the real hero in all of this because when she saw the FWC report, she wrote her own report. It must have taken her, you know, a thousand hours. And she went through all the body cam footage. So that footage that you just played where he is admitting to having two beers appears nowhere in the FWC report.

And the FWC report, and it comes up in the context of when they give him the opportunity to have his blood drawn rather than forcing the blood drawn. His reason for that, which is stated in the FWC report, is that his lawyer is not present. But when Vanessa, Lucy's aunt, went through all of the body cam footage, she came across that footage from the lead detective Thompson's body cam footage where he admits to drinking. So to say that drinking is not involved, well, by his own admission, says that he has two beers, of course, the 61 beer cans and the empty bottle of champagne, those were all supposedly found the day after. And then, of course, we learned evidence. Well, I shouldn't say that. At 1.30 a.m., at 1.30 a.m., Catarina Pugge has her blood drawn.

And at 1.30 a.m., we know that she is a 0.14, 4 hours after striking the channel marker. So she's still nearly like twice the legal limit hours later. That's how much she had to drink. This is a teenage 17 year old girl. Well, this is a this is a star soccer player. This is probably the best high school female soccer player in the state. Yes. And look, we know that kids drink. You know, we know that in Miami it's a hard charging town kids. I'm not passing judgment, of course. on any of that. But I'm just saying to say that there's no alcohol involved isn't true. Why didn't they draw blood?

They have a dead girl on the scene. They've got multiple victims being airlifted with severe injuries. They didn't need probable cause. They had probable cause, it seems, based on all of the evidence we now have from the testimony of the individual investigators, bloodshot eyes, he smells. Like Al, I mean, he was clearly, I mean, or seemed to them to be impaired. Well, Billy, let me just cut you up. That comes the bloodshot eyes, the smell of alcohol, all of that comes much later.

Okay. But it was that night, though, Joel. When you say it comes later, you learn about it later. No, but none of that stuff made the report. So basically, Thompson, right. Well, Thompson says that he saw no indicia of impairment. What happens is, you know, normally in these criminal cases, they don't get better with time. Over time, cases usually get, are denigrated. But here, this is different because over time, we learned that Thompson's report leaves out what his partner that night observed. What do I mean? sort of at the moment of truth when Thompson is sitting down with George Pino and they're at

Elliot Key now. They've triaged at Elliott Key and sitting at a picnic table. And Thompson asks Officer Gazola and they're from the same organization, FWC. And Thompson tells Gazola, Officer Gazola, listen, I got to take a few phone calls. I want you to sit and observe Pino while I take these phone calls. calls okay no problem two and a half years after the accident his deposition is taken for those in the audience who don't know what a deposition is it's a sworn statement that that we're allowed to take in criminal cases and he's an officer who's listed as a witness so he's being deposed and it must

have come as a huge surprise to everyone because he tells the story about how his partner told him to watch pino but that he observes pino with bloodshot eyes he says he's disoriented and he says he smells like alcohol. And then he says he tells Officer Thompsonness when he returns from his phone calls. So how that didn't make it into the report or questions for these officers. So that would all be probable cause to draw blood, to check his blood alcohol level. But my understanding is FWC policy is that when you have an accident this severe with the kind of injuries and death, in fact, involved, you don't need probable cause, basically. just under those circumstances, you draw blood.

It's part of the standard investigation. Yeah, well, I mean, an example of that is a recent tragedy that took place the Miami sailing tragedy of the little girls with the tugboat on the tugboat ran into the catamaran. And that case looks to have been taken over by the Coast Guard. The Admiral gave a quote, the herald, and said that we owe it to the public. we owe it to the public and they took his blood and I don't think there was any

indication of impairment but you're right their own the FWC's policy is death or great bodily injury you draw blood it's not an option do we do we know who Thompson

was talking to on the phone in the middle of this homicide investigation I don't but but you know he had body camera on as well so I don't know if it's on his body camera. I do know that Vanessa brings up in her counter report that the officers were turning body camera on and off. That should be known. And I think it will be. I think it will be known. Let's talk about the body camera for a moment.

What did additional FWC officer-worn body camera footage document the 2020 night, George Pino, crashed a boat, killing one teenager and permanently disabling another? We don't know because FWC in a statement says video from at least two officers was deleted after a set retention period because of how the officers labeled it, categorizing them as incidental because they were not lead officers on the case. As it turns out, there is at least that we know of four body cams from four different FWC officers on the scene that were deleted. Okay, one, Joel, oopsie daisy. Two, okay, they were poorly trained or untrained. They didn't. know the policy they didn't properly check off the right box to preserve three four i mean what is happening here where is this evidence going in this in this homicide investigation well five actually five because all of the footage from the alien smuggling um camera

on affixed a channel marker 14 uh which would conclusively prove that there was no other boat uh that's missing also they deleted all of this This video recording and photographic evidence in this case, what the hell is going on here? Is this an investigation or was this a cover-up from the jump? I've seen officers give sobriety tests or draw blood with much less indicia, if that was the term that you used, or evidence of impairment. Like, what was going on here, Joel? The three-hour investigation, that three-hour period from the time that Pino struck the channel marker till the time that they decide that they're not going to take his blood and force-draw his blood

was the real problem with this case. I don't think that FWC did a proper investigation. Why do I say that? When I got involved with the case, let me just be clear and clear up some misconceptions. Number one, we've never asked for George Pino to be charged with a felony. When I got involved with the case, after looking at everything, the only thing I really saw was that we could, where we had any real argument after the report that I read from FWC, after the decision to file misdemeanors. I think that the state was sort of handcuffed

by the investigation. I know they've taken some blame for this, but I really think that people have to understand that state attorneys are different from US attorneys. US attorneys send out FBI agents to do investigations. We have so many crimes in this community that the state attorneys office relies on the officers to do the investigation.

So they were presented really an investigation where once they decided not to draw blood, we'll never really know if he was under the influence or not. How could we know? We know that Gazzola says that he smelled like alcohol. We know that he said he was disoriented. We know that he said that he seemed almost like disinterested. At times, you have the deposition. But once that decision is made, we're sort of left guessing.

Where I do find fault is when this case begun, and I went to the original state attorney, who was taken off the case, and I asked for, you know, file false information during a felony investigation. My clients were so greatly offended by what they told me was George Pino, going into the community and blaming another boat months and months and months after the accident. It's not just he made up that there was a boat on that night. He filed, his lawyers filed a federal pleading before Judge Jose Martinez saying in great detail

that there was another boat. He's amended those statements in other forms as well. We don't know what he said to the insurance company, but we just know and that my family said, Joel, he's going around telling everyone there was another boat. And those are, you know, those are fighting words, okay? You have a tragedy like this, and another man is saying that another boat is at least partially responsible for this, and we know it not to be a fact.

Well, like I said, those are fighting words. So I want to just clear it up that the family only wanted the truth. They only wanted the truth about the boat to come out. And an admission by him that, look, there was no other boat. I was scared. I was this. I was that. And that just hasn't come.

Last question before we go. Just last week, the charges were upgraded to manslaughter, an additional felony. What happened? What have we learned through the depositions that has led to these new charges? Well, they stopped. We used to get the deposition. So I haven't seen the new depositions. They used to file the depositions.

with the clerk's office. But I think that that was becoming sort of too prejudicial with all the coverage that was going on. But my understanding is that they've been taking the depositions of some of the young ladies who were involved. And I mean, the state already knew that Caddy Puig was a .014. But apparently another young lady took her deposition

and admitted to having, well, first of all, said that there was beer on the boat when she got on mr pina's boat that's my understanding and that she she was drinking excessively look vessel homicide and manslaughter are essentially both the same almost the same thing vessel homicide is wanton and willful conduct while you're operating a boat and this is just wanton and willful conduct causing death so so you know you can't get they can't stack the sentence on them. But now we're facing two felonies. But bottom line, Joel, what we understand now is that the booze was already on the boat

when these teenage girls arrived. Many of them were drinking in excess. We know that not only from this newer testimony, but from the blood alcohol level of some of the other girls. And before we go, Lucy Fernandez, who perished in this accident, what was her blood alcohol level at the time of her death? Can I just say two things? Number one, her blood alcohol level was zero, zero.

She did not have any alcohol in her, but, you know, we've been talking about Cathy and this tragedy, and there is some good that has come out of this. And because of the efforts of Andy Fernandez and his beautiful wife, better half, Melly Fernandez, there's a new state law, and it's called Lucy's law, ensuring that, her death and Kathy's injury will protect others in the future. And so that will sort of cement their legacy. And I think that that's a bright side and where this is evolved to. And I know the family is very, very proud of that. And so I'd just like to end with that. If that's possible.

Joel Donaro, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck to you and the Fernandez family. Thank you. My pleasure. Hey, Roy, what do you remember about Paula Dean, the butter queen? She used a lot of butter, and she also said the N-word. That is the title of our new documentary, actually. She used a lot of butter, and she also used the N-word, a Paula-Dine story.

That is, it's close. It's called canceled the Paula Dean story. You might remember back in 2013, there was a bit of an scandal in which she admitted to using the N-word in a deposition against her and her brother, Uncle Bubba. Of course. At Uncle Bubba's oyster house was the name of their seafood restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. And our new documentary is a trip down memory lane to more innocent times of the 2000s in America. When you can say to N-word. And not be canceled.

pop culture was great no she she said it and was canceled but it's a really interesting opportunity to kind of buck conventional wisdom and to re-examine this scandal and the effect on her family she has two sons jamie and bobby one of whom is a big fan of the show yeah first the big show and then because it was force fed to him via his RSS feed believe it or not became a fan of of because Miami. That's shocking. It's shocking to me, too, because who gives a shit about Miami in Georgia? Turns out at least one, at least one person.

Yeah. But it was a really interesting experience working on this, and it has its world premiere on September 6th at the Toronto International Film Festival. I know you'll be there. If there was a hockey game, you'd be there in Toronto. I'll meet you, Tim Hortons. I got to get my passport first. Are they going to let you back?

is the question. That's my concern. No, they probably won't. As well. Interestingly, you go through customs in the Toronto airport. U.S. Customs is there in Toronto, which makes it much more convenient to be put into, I guess, customs detention or customs custody.

But you're not interested in this one, Roy, I think. You're not curious about this documentary of mine. Well, I like food. So maybe if there's like a cooking segment I probably watch it. The last documentary I made with a cooking segment was that food, it was cocaine.

Was Cocaine Cowboys 2 hustling with the godmother in which Charles Cosby from Oakland teaches us how to cook crack? It was banned in certain countries. It was certainly banned from YouTube. I think in Australia, for example, we had to remove the crack cooking tutorial from the movie in order for it to be distributed, which on the one hand, you can say that censorship. On the other hand, I feel like it's probably Educational. Well, no, I'm thinking it's probably like a responsible decision on behalf of their government to be like, how about

we're not going to distribute a crack cooking tutorial in our country? It seems fair. Tough to argue with that. And while you will only be able to see cancel the Paula Dean story so far at the Toronto International Film Festival, there's

three screenings there if you go to TIF.net, TIFF.net. But our new document which you might remember world premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, Men of War, is premiering on digital, be available everywhere you get your movies or rent your movies, Apple, DirecTV, Amazon, everywhere. This one is about the 2020 attempted coup of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela by a few former U.S. Green Berets that was hatched out of of a we work here in Brickle in downtown Miami.

Yeah, so not the coup that happened in January 6th, no? Not that one. This one is in Venezuela. Yes. I kind of got memory hold in the pandemic. It was in 2020. It was shortly after then President Donald Trump in this first administration had put a $15 million bounty on Nicholas Maduro's head.

And these guys went in with some former Venezuelan military who had defected to Colombia. and they went over the border and the media dubbed it the Bay of Pigglets. It didn't turn out so well. In fact, two of the Green Berets were captured. One of them, his boat broke down on the way, the guy that helped to plot it.

The other two were captured. They were sentenced to like 27 years in a tropical gulag in Venezuela for terrorism. The Biden administration, they negotiated their release. They were released before Christmas a couple of December's ago.

This documentary starts off as this kind of like, almost Jason Bourne-esque political techno thriller and then turns into a really, really more introspective like portrait of a warrior of an American war hero who was originally from Canada, but renounced his citizenship, became an American after 9-11, was in the military for like 17 years or like a dozen tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. And really what happens when you get retired out of the only life you've ever. ever known and the only work you've ever known and how these kind of like these you know g i joes

and captain americas and gai janes we just kind of like toss them aside when governments are done playing with them and what do you do you plot a coup that is not the slogan of the although that would look good on the poster i think what do you do plot a coup so for our miami moment here is a clip from men of war in which jordan gudrow this u.s green beret turned mercenary is bonding with his Venezuelan soldiers and telling them that they are not going to try to coup Venezuela and overthrow Maduro. They are going to do it. I'm a soldier and I was in the position to help.

So of course I'm going to help. And so when I look in these soldiers' eyes in Venezuela, they're patriots, exiles from their country. And they say, you know, will you help us? What the fuck am I going to say, no? I mean, it's the motto of the special forces. the oppressor Libert, free the oppressed. Make no mistake, guys.

So the deal is there will be no chance in this. There will be no trying in this. We're not going to try to do this. We are going to do this. This is going to succeed.