About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Boat Crash Manslaughter Trial - Full Closing Arguments from COURT TV, published June 30, 2026. The transcript contains 31,153 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Good morning. About three weeks ago, you all came into this courtroom not knowing what kind of piece you might be selected to serve on the church. Really, you should keep your voice up. Yes, ma'am. About three weeks ago, you all came to this courtroom and you sat"
[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Good morning.
[00:00:17] Speaker 1: About three weeks ago, you all came into this courtroom not knowing what kind of piece you might be selected to serve on the church. Really, you should keep your voice up. Yes, ma'am. About three weeks ago, you all came to this courtroom and you sat through the jury selection process without any idea what kind of a case you were going to maybe be selected to sit in and listen to. No doubt, this has not been an easy case for anyone in this courtroom, but everyone in this courtroom owes each of you a true debt of gratitude for your service, for your attention, and for your thoughtfulness throughout this process. I want to talk with you all a little bit about what I said to you at the very beginning of this trial. I told you that this is a case about responsibility and accountability. Now that you've heard all the evidence in this case, you can see that this defendant is a man who abdicated all responsibility as the captain of a ship owes to each one of his passengers. Now, done safely, of course, voting can be a lot of fun, and you know that. Look at the pictures that we have. We have so much of the evidence in this case. You all saw the photograph that Andy Fernandez took from his boat, looking across to the defendant's boat, where the teenagers are on the boat, they're in the water. What a great time! What a special day! What a special day! That photograph was taken because Andy Fernandez was taken with how special it was that his teenage daughter said, "Mom, Dad, come on out to the sandbar." He really didn't want to. Thank God he did. Thank God he did. When voting is done safely, what a wonderful thing to do. When people like this defendant do not take seriously their responsibility to their own passengers and to other boaters and passengers that might be in the area, disaster and catastrophe can happen. And though it may seem obvious, I wanted to highlight for you in this trial that boat crashes are a lot different than car crashes. When you're on a boat, you're basically like someone in the back of a pickup truck. On boats, you don't have the benefit of brakes, not even anti-lock brakes. You don't have seat belts. You don't have a steel cage surrounding you to protect you from impacting other objects. There's no airbags. And if, God forbid, something should happen and you fall out of that boat, you jump out of that boat, you're rejected from that boat. You run the risk of drowning, even if the injuries that you sustained weren't that serious. And we know that to be true because that's exactly what happened to Lucy Fernandez. Now, in this case, you have evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that this defendant disregarded basic navigational rules and concepts of safety. And he did so in a manner that made it a near certainty that tragedy would result. This tragedy, the death of Lucy Fernandez was completely preventable. But out of this abdication of duty that this defendant owed to his own daughter, to his wife, and to those 11 other teenage girls, these 13 other souls that were on his boat, what did he do? He lied over and over and over again about what happened. Why? To shift the blame away from himself and in an avoidance of accountability. That's why I told you at the beginning of this case, this is a case about responsibility, or the lack thereof, and accountability, and the complete lack thereof. So let's talk about what was happening on that Sunday. It's Labor Day. It's Biscine Day. There's a little more boat traffic out there than usual because it's a holiday weekend. The defendant and his wife decided they were hosting a birthday celebration that weekend for their daughter who was going to be 2018. That morning, some of the girls watching masks on TV. We're talking still back in 2022. We're just kind of starting to come out of the pandemic. After that, pickleball tournament sponsored by the defendant. The girls defend tennis, pickleball, what a fun day. Knowing that the next thing they're going to do is go out to Billy's Point. Go out to that sandbar. So, everybody boards George Plino's boat to go party at the sandbar. And boy, what a party that was going to be, huh? They brought food, sure. The defendant's wife said, "Oh, yeah, and my husband packed the drinks." Ooh, what drinks? Beer. Alcoholic seltzer. Prosecco. Shamboard. Not just for the Pinots. For everybody. The kids. Other people that they're going to meet up with. What a great time for these teens, huh? How irresponsible. But, get up to the sandbar. And what happens? Well, the defendant going out to that sandbar, you heard from Paul Albert. Navigational expert. GPS expert. That when he went out to the sandbar, he goes relatively at a mild pace. Not really a great next to me. And he kind of meanders in and out of the canal. Out of the channel. Which, Mr. Albert told you is consistent with, you know, navigating around other boats. Things of that nature. Until they get to where they're going to drop anchor. But they don't stay there because one of the other boats, as Mr. Fernandez told you, was too big to drop anchor there. So they go a little bit further north. And that's where they all stop. And they're there for almost three hours. What are they doing? People are drinking. They're socializing. They're swimming. They're listening to music. They're dancing. A lot of these 17-year-old girls were drinking alcohol that the defendant provided. You heard from Cammie, the first passenger who testified in this trial.
[00:07:59] Speaker ?: She had consumed 10 alcoholic beverages. 10!
[00:08:04] Speaker 1: I submit to you that as the fun and the drinks were flowing, the defendant kind of lost track of time. And he suddenly realizes, oh my goodness, it's getting to be close to 6:30. I'm going to get all these people back to Ocean Reef. And everybody's got to get fixed up, slammed up for the party. Now, we're testimony that the house that they were stationed at was like a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house. Conservatively speaking, that means four girls per bathroom getting ready for the party that he had spent almost $2,000 for. So, it makes sense that the GPS data that Mr. Albert showed us on the way back, he's making a beeline. He's not making all those track points. He's not deviating from course. He's in the mindset of like, set it and forget it. Get back to Ocean Reef as quickly as you can. So, literally, with a boat full of buzzed teenagers, if not drunk teenagers, this man decides to set a course heading to that channel. A channel that he has gone through time and time again. A channel he knows where those markers are. In a boat that there's a stipulation between the state and the defense agreement, the boat was in fine working condition. There's nothing wrong with that boat. And he knows the specifications of that boat. He's had it since 2020. So, with that boat, with those ten girls at the bow of that boat, with an extra thousand pounds on that boat, at the front of that boat, he makes a beeline. And you've heard from Mr. Albert, in order to reach the speeds that we see from the GPS, with that amount of weight on the boat, he was going full throttle. Full throttle with all these teenagers on board that have been consuming alcohol as fast as he can through a narrow channel. Because if other boats want to go through that channel, if he's in the wrong way, then they've got nowhere to go. Because if they go outside the channel, he'll run around. So, with all of that going on, he decides to travel down the wrong side of the channel as fast as he can.
[00:10:47] Speaker ?: We know that right before impact, he's going 47 miles per hour.
[00:10:54] Speaker 1: Now, it's kind of a silly thing, but I think most people have seen folks, you know, driving the cars and put their hand out the windshield or out the window and kind of feel the air over your arms. We take for granted in driving that it's not that fast because we have windshields. But if you didn't have that windshield, if you were on a nice paved road, if you were on a bumpy road, 47 miles an hour is lightning fast. And the reason why you saw those reenactments is because we wanted you, in a safe a way, but as realistic a way as possible, to understand the manner in which that man decided to operate his boat. Now, I talked about the teens that were bugged. The defendant, for sure, consumed alcohol. The defense would have you believe that it was only the two beers that the defendant told Lieutenant Thompson. I'm going to submit to you that maybe the evidence suggests that, just as he wasn't exactly truthful about how the crash happened, maybe he also wasn't so truthful about how much alcohol he had consumed. This defendant knew the channel. He knew that vessel. He knew the people on the vessel. He knew what they've been doing on that vessel. Yet, he chose, before this impact happened, to put his vessel on a heading five degrees to port, five degrees to the east. And that put him on a collision course with channel marker 15. And sure enough, by the time he realizes, oh no, it's too late. How did this crash happen? I told you. Because he was reckless. He was criminally negligent. No one but this defendant captained that boat. No one but this defendant decided the speed that it should travel. And no one but this defendant decided the direction of travel. No one and nothing is responsible for the death of Lucy Hernandez. Except for that man sitting right there. He is the reason why he is dead. So let's talk about that journey a little bit more. In these photos, states three and ten, which are in evidence. We see in number ten, a bunch of young girls having a great time. In number three, we see that photograph that Andy Fernandez took. What a fun having a great time. What a fun having a day. What a fun having a day. Is there worse?
[00:14:12] Speaker ?: What a fun having a day.
[00:14:14] Speaker 1: Is there worse?
[00:14:15] Speaker ?: What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day.
[00:15:11] Speaker 2: Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day. Is there worse? What a fun having a day.
[00:15:17] Speaker ?: Is there worse?
[00:15:18] Speaker 2: What a fun having a day.
[00:15:19] Speaker ?: What a fun having a day.
[00:15:20] Speaker 1: This person right here in the white bathing suit with the little flowers.
[00:15:50] Speaker 2: This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl.
[00:16:20] Speaker 1: This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl. This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl.
[00:16:34] Speaker ?: This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl. This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl. This person is a little bit more than a white bathing suit with the little girl.
[00:16:48] Speaker 1: We know from exhibits 11 and 106, which are in evidence, that Lucy was seated here in the diagram number 9, right in front of where the defendant was at the helm. And we know that this is the seat that Lucy sat in where it has her name. You all saw it for yourselves. You will have the opportunity to go on that vessel, the vessel that turned out to be almost a grave site for a 17-year-old girl. But she was still alive. Because she was still in camp. That's where she sat. And that's where, when this recreation was done, with FWC, with the assistance of Mr. Albert, someone sat in that very seat and filmed the route that that man took. Let's go.
[00:17:59] Speaker ?: Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
[00:18:07] Speaker 1: Coming up on 13 and then 13A.
[00:18:37] Speaker 2: 13, 3, 15.
[00:19:07] Speaker 1: That's traveling at about the same speed that we know this defendant was traveling through that channel. Let's look at something again. You may remember that when I played these videos for you during the trial, I would stop the video just about at the point where it looks like the vessel is going to impact that channel. And then I asked Mr. Albert, who's sitting here, okay, so if that impact is, let's say we have, you know, four seconds left, what's four plus nine? Oh, my God, that would be 13. Why was I asking that? Because what we know from the GPS reconstruction of this crash, that nine seconds prior to impact, the defendant chose to change the heading of his vessel. Slightly to the left, and on the terms to the left. And when he made that choice, that's when he put himself and all of those teenagers on a path toward near a certain tragedy. He was the one that made that choice. And for nine seconds, they were on that path. And, you know, you say, oh, you know, nine seconds, how long, not, well, we can use technology to tell us, just how long nine seconds is. I have my iPhone here set for nine seconds. Ready, set, go. That's a long time to not look at what you're going to be in front of me now. That's a long time to not look at what you're going to be in front of me now. So let's look at this again.
[00:21:20] Speaker ?: Let's look at this again. Let's look at this again. Let's look at what you're going to be in front of me now. Let's look at this again.
[00:21:44] Speaker 1: That's 13-A. There's the buoy. The one that Mr. Albert explained that he put that buoy in place using his GPS device to replicate the location where the second to last track mark is. That tells us that this is the location where the defendant decides to change heading slightly to the left, to the outside part of the channel, where it is not supposed to be, and then continues straight dead on until right before impact. That's a long time to look at this.
[00:22:27] Speaker ?: That's a long time to look at what you're going to be in front of me now. That's a long time to look at what you're going to be in front of me now. That's a long time to look at what you're going to be in front of me now. That's a long time to look at what you're going to be in front of me now. That's a long time to look at what you're going to be in front of me now.
[00:22:31] Speaker 1: Channel worker 15. This is a little bit of a ways away from you. All of the evidence that was introduced in this trial, you will have available during your deliberations to watch if you wish. You'll have a laptop that you can watch any of this video on. Right now, we still have 41 seconds left in this video. Let's see how long it takes to get to that channel worker. Excuse me. So, do you not see how long he had the ability to see that channel marker and adjust course? But because he didn't, because he was operating with such complete disregard for the kids that were on his boat, Lucy winds up like this in the house building. Because of the way he operated that boat, this is what the police had to deal with.
[00:23:52] Speaker ?: So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That part of the cliff was included in part so that you all would get a sense of when the police are responding to a life and death emergency,
[00:24:35] Speaker 1: it makes sense for them to go as fast as they can. Not for dinner parties, for life and death emergencies. And you can see that these officers, even on Marine Patrol officers that are trained on a police boat, it's still bumpy. Even though we know that it was a clear day with calm seas, calm winds. You can see the officers, one of the flaps on his uniforms, like, waving in the breeze, because that's what it is to be on a boat. Air rescue is helping a paramedic trying to get to Lucy, to try to save her life. But this is where you remember that Officer Bruto, well, he's not an officer anymore, he's retired, but he was the first police officer that testified in this case. And he told you about the difficulties that air rescue was having getting the paramedic onto the boat, because the prop wash from the propellers was making the small boat start to spin. So Officer Bruto and another officer basically pin that vessel between there so it can be stationary enough to safely drop the paramedic to try to save Lucy's life. So that's what we're going to do now.
[00:26:19] Speaker ?: So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do now. So that's what we're going to do now. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do.
[00:26:50] Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do.
[00:26:53] Speaker ?: So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do.
[00:27:58] Speaker 2: So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do.
[00:28:01] Speaker ?: So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do.
[00:28:07] Speaker 1: The girl in the white bathing suit with the little flowers, who just a little while earlier have been singing and dancing with her best friends.
[00:28:37] Speaker ?: And that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do.
[00:28:59] Speaker 2: And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do.
[00:29:07] Speaker ?: And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do.
[00:29:10] Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. Police boat raced as fast as they could to the Elliott Key Harbor, where a helicopter was waiting for her to try to get her to the hospital to save her life, the life that he endangered.
[00:29:44] Speaker ?: And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do.
[00:30:42] Speaker 1: I talked with you before. About that final trademark. Now is the time to talk about it again. On the way up, we see him going northbound. Here he is coming south. Track point. Track point. From 6:37.19 to 6:37.28. Nine seconds straight. Had he not made the decision at 6:37.19 To make that turn. To go to port the side of the channel. Number one, he wouldn't have been on the wrong side of the channel. Number two, he wouldn't have been on a collision course with channel marker 15. Which you know because you've seen it with your own eyes. Is fully visible from where that checkpoint is. This last checkpoint is the one that really tells on the defendant. Because it is only here when the channel marker. Which is three feet by three feet. Painted day glow green. At the top of a steel pole. That's the first time that he comes out of his stupor. Or whatever he's zoned out or checked out doing. That's when he realizes. Oh my God. And that's when he tries to turn the course. But he can't. He's going too fast. He has too many people on the boat. He can't turn. Because boats don't turn on a dime. He can't turn to avoid the collision. Because boats are steered from behind. So when he makes that turn, what happens? He slams the starboard side of his boat. Right into that channel marker. This tells you he's guilty. No responsible operator of a vessel would ever do this. And what's the result of the, I don't know, arrogance? The complete disregard? Nobody's saying he meant to hurt anyone. But just because you didn't mean to cause something terrible. If what you're doing is likely to cause something terrible to happen, the law says you're responsible. There are consequences for your actions. Sadly, beyond sadly, the consequences of those actions are in States Exhibits 15 and 7. The healthy, happy, vivacious young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Goes from this to this. With her own father. Tearfully, but with controlled emotion. Telling you this. This was my Lucy. The defense would have you believe me. The defendant was terribly broken up. And we all have no doubt. Nobody would be happy about this. But imagine. If your man lives his first Christmas without their chance. And this is what's posted on Instagram. This is bereft memory. This is what they see in December 2022. Their daughter is barely cold in her grave. And this is what's posted. Responsibility. Accountability. Mr. Andy Fernandez told you when I asked him what he saw of his daughter hooked up with all those tubes.
[00:35:03] Speaker ?: And his answer was a parent's worst memory. And his answer was a parent's worst memory.
[00:35:06] Speaker 1: And his answer was a parent's worst memory. And his answer was a parent's worst memory. And his answer was a parent's worst memory. And his answer was a parent's worst memory. And his answer was a parent's worst memory.
[00:35:36] Speaker ?: I don't want to unplug this thing. But I hate being so far from the church. You may have permission to do this. Let's do it. I'm covered.
[00:35:48] Speaker 1: So, I want to say, first and foremost, this is not a complicated case. The facts are not really difficult. And in fact, many of the facts in this case are not in dispute. But what is in dispute, for sure, is what level of accountability does this defendant have? An injury selection, the judge told you. Bias, prejudice, and simply have no place in your deliberations in that jury room. But your common sense, the evidence, photo of what the witnesses say, and the law, that belongs. Common sense tells you that this defendant is guilty. Now, the defense through this tribe has tried to downplay the enormity of this defendant's recklessness and criminal negligence by saying, "It's just an accident." No, it's not. This defendant was in a rush because he had paid money for the party for his goals. The way he operated that boat with so many people that had been drinking when he'd been drinking, and a high rate of speed in a body of water that literally was called the I-95 of Biscayne Bay. Well, it establishes recklessness and culpable negligence. Why? For a party? Because he wanted to be the cool dad, the dad that brings alcohol out to the sandbar, the dad that plans the pickleball party, camp counselor George. He wasn't thinking about the navigational rules. He wasn't thinking about the well-being of the passengers. He wasn't thinking about the well-being even on his own wife and daughter when he was on that B line to get back to the ocean with the boat. He was too wrapped up and trying to be the cool dad on a fast boat. He didn't mean to. It's not a defense. It's an excuse. Now, the judge is going to give you an instruction, and it's called excusable homicide. Common sense tells you that just because one person causes the death of another person, that in and of itself doesn't necessarily make it a criminal act. For example, the judge is going to read you an instruction. It's called introduction to homicide. And that instruction says that you have to consider whether or not the killing was lawful, whether it was justifiable or excusable. Now, of course, this is not a case of self-defense. But the law tells us that if there's a justified use of deadly force to defend a person, then that person will not be held criminally liable for that death. Common sense. Common sense also tells you that there can be accidents that happen, but there should be no criminal responsibility. And let me tell you what that instruction is. Excuseable homicide. If the killing is committed by accident and misfortune, which nobody is saying he intended this to happen, and obviously this is most unfortunate, but doing any lawful act, was he operating his vessel lawfully when he was on the wrong side of the channel, going so fast, not keeping a proper lookout? Was he operating it lawfully when he's not avoiding the risk of a collision, when he doesn't even avoid the collision? No. And by lawful means? Is this the way that we expect people to operate their vessels on the waters of this state? Of course not. With usual, ordinary caution. Was there one ounce of usual, ordinary caution as he's speeding from this trap point straight into that channel marker? Of course not.
[00:40:21] Speaker 3: There was an objection in the motion.
[00:40:24] Speaker 1: And without any lawful intent. Now, I'm not saying he had an intent to cause any harm, but his intent also was not to safeguard his own passengers. So when you hear this instruction, listen to it. Pay close attention to it. But then ask yourself, does the evidence support a claim that this is an excusable homicide? I submit to you the answer is a resounding no. The best analogy that I could give for people that don't really go on the water too much would be this. Imagine if a person decides to drive a pickup truck with 12 balls in the back. They're not restrained in any way. And that person is going down a rather bumpy road. Not a smoothly paved road. Because even on the water on clear bays, you're still bumping along that water. And that person who's driving that pickup truck with all those people in the back, on a bumpy road, decides to drive on the wrong side of the road. And let's suppose that at the end of that road, it dead ends and there's a telephone pole at that dead end. And although that person who's driving the pickup truck can clearly see that telephone pole, at least if they're paying attention, for nine seconds that person driving that pickup truck slams into that telephone pole and one or more of the girls hurt badly, maybe even dies. Didn't mean to kill anybody. But are we really going to say that that is an acceptable conduct? Are we really not going to hold somebody criminally liable when they have precious cargo on board and pay no attention to what's right in front of their face? Of course not. Your common sense tells you that's not the world that we live in. Those are not the laws that make sense. This was not an excusable homicide because the defendant was more worried about being the fun dad, the party dad, the cool dad, than he was worried about being responsible dad, safe dad. He created an environment by supplying that alcohol, by not managing how much those girls were drinking, by drinking himself out there on the water, having played pickleball earlier, been in the sun, in the salt water. He created the scenario where this happened. And that's why Lucy is dead. I know that the defense will have an opportunity to address you when I'm finished. And I have no doubt that they will say that they are very sorry that Lucy is dead. Nobody wanted that to happen. And I am sure that that is 100% heartfelt. But when you hear any kind of statement like that, I want you to keep your ears out for the inevitable. But, so sorry she's gone. But, what a tragedy she's gone. But, you know what the rest of that sentence is. It was only an accident. Accidents. Accidents happen. Well, you know this wasn't just an accident. An accident is if you accidentally blow through a stop sign, and somebody gets into a death or death. You never. This isn't blowing through a stop sign. This is blowing into the stop sign on the wrong side of the road when you've been drinking. It's not an accident. I want to take you back to when this defendant's wife took the witness stand. I asked her to show her Lucy's photograph.
[00:45:06] Speaker ?: Right at this witness stand.
[00:45:13] Speaker 1: She's sitting here, and she's looking at this picture of a young person that she had known for Lucy's whole life. And in the same breath that she identifies this picture of Lucy, she tells you it was an accident. I made note of the exact back and forth exchange. This was me asking her, "Do you know how it is that your husband wound up smashing into Channel Marker 15?" Answer. The accident? How it occurred? How did he wind up crashing into it? I do not know. Me. Why not? Her. I was looking at my phone and trying to send a text to the moms. A video of the girls dancing. I was trying to send it to the moms. And I remember looking at the blue line and being upset that it wasn't going through the text. And I was looking at my phone. Me. I'm showing you a photo. Who is it? Her.
[00:46:25] Speaker ?: Lucy. Me.
[00:46:27] Speaker 1: And she died because your husband crashed into that Channel Marker.
[00:46:28] Speaker ?: Right?
[00:46:29] Speaker 1: Her.
[00:46:30] Speaker ?: With the same breath that she had just identified this young woman.
[00:46:31] Speaker 1: She has this to say. "She died because there was an accident." What? How do you know it was an accident? You were too busy watching your cell phone. You were too busy drinking your- Perseco's and your shambord out of Yeti tumblers to know what happened that day.
[00:46:41] Speaker ?: You were too busy watching your cell phone.
[00:46:41] Speaker 1: You were too busy drinking your Perseco's and your shambord out of Yeti tumblers to know what happened that day. You were too busy watching your cell phone. You were too busy drinking your Perseco's and your shambord out of Yeti tumblers to know what happened that day. You were too busy watching your cell phone. You were too busy drinking your Perseco's and your shambord out of Yeti tumblers to know what happened that day. You were too busy watching your cell phone. You were too busy drinking your Perseco's and your shambord out of Yeti tumblers to know what happened that day. But you want to take this witness stand under oath and say that this was an accident? The expressions of sorrow for Lucy and her family mean nothing in this court of law because this is not a case to be decided on based on sympathy. not for Lucy, not for her family, not for the other girls who went through this horrible traumatic experience, not for the defendant's life, and not for him either. It's not a case about who cried the loudest, who held back the tears. It's a case about what is the facts, what is the law. That's why every day when we see you, Judge Tiegler-Mendez asks you the same series of questions. Have you paid attention to this case outside of this courtroom? Have you heard anything about it? Because truly, we need you to make this decision not based on sympathy, not based on what's out there in the inner web of it all. We need you to base your decision on what happened in this courtroom. The defense seems to want you to believe that the defendant didn't see the channel marker that is not responsible. If you didn't see it, it's because you weren't looking.
[00:48:47] Speaker ?: What were you doing?
[00:48:48] Speaker 1: Were you watching your wife as she's trying to get these text messages out to the other parents? Were you looking at your own phone? Were you drinking something? What were you doing? Sure as heck worth watching out for that neon green channel marker that you knew was there. And because of that inattention, his boat wound up upside down under the water. The defense also seems to be suggesting that, well, if he didn't mean for it to happen, he's not responsible. If he meant to kill Lucy, he'd be charged with murder. If he deliberately smashed into that channel marker, same thing. He'd be charged with murder. Why is the defense defending against a charge I never filed? The defense kept asking the girls that were on the vote who came and testified, and the defendant's wife, did he look like he was impaired by alcohol? Well, I did not charge him with a BUI voting under the influence manslaughter. You know what? I can't prove what his blood alcohol level was at the time he smashed into that channel marker. I can't prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that he was impaired by alcohol at the time he smashed into that channel marker. So you know what? I didn't charge him with that defense. Again, why is the defense defending against something he's not even charged with? Now, he claimed to the police that he had two beers. Well, frankly, it seems like two beers might be a little bit under recording what he actually consumed, but I can't prove how much more than that he might have had. So I didn't charge him with a BUI notice. Think about how many times you may hear the defense say, "You didn't look impaired. You didn't look impaired." But who was it that was making this judgment, at least from the voting perspective? The teenagers and the defendant's own wife. All of them had been drinking alcohol. Do you think maybe people that have been drinking alcohol are not in the best position to say who did or didn't look like they were a little bit buds or more? And then that brings up another question for you all to consider. Why even drink beer at all? When you're the captain. When you're responsible for all these lives. Gatorade. Non-alcoholic seltzers. Water. Iced tea. Why do people drink beer? They drink it to get buzzed. And, Lieutenant Thompson told the defendant and this courtroom. It's not per se against the law to have a beer and operate a boat. But if you do, drink and drive. Or if you do, drink and operate a boat. Better be really mindful. Because I think it's common knowledge that before somebody looks like they're stumbling down drunk. Alcohol's already playing games with your brain. We all know that alcohol can make people maybe not such good decisions. It can maybe influence your ability to pay attention and to concentrate. But again, he's not charged with being lying. He's charged with being reckless. He's charged with being criminally negligible. And the defense also brought up through the officers that see the defendant. Well, you didn't see any signs that he was impaired. Of course not. The police are seeing him some decent amount of time after the crash. Time after he'd been holding on to his boat.
[00:53:13] Speaker ?: Right?
[00:53:14] Speaker 1: Time that he had to kind of clear his thoughts, be in the water, assess his surroundings.
[00:53:20] Speaker ?: The one that told you she'd had 10 drinks.
[00:53:21] Speaker 1: A 17-year-old with 10 drinks in her system snapped to it enough that she was able to help try to rescue Kathy. Mia. She said, I was buzzed when I got on that boat to go back to Ocean Reef. But being in that water and seeing the emergency situation sobered her up at least enough that she was able to do things like try to save her friends' lives. The friends that he endangered. So, you know, to say that by the time the police see the defendant, he doesn't look like any signs of vacancy impairment, that's just the function of time, adrenaline, and being in an emergency situation. For sure, the defendant knew in the moment after this wreck, this was not good seamanship. This goes beyond, not just following navigational rules, this goes beyond anything like that. This is criminal conduct. And that's why he couldn't wait when he's brought to Elliott Key Harbor and Lieutenant Thompson just wants to ask him about, hey, where do you keep your boat? Do you have a trailer for your boat? Because he's saying, I'm going to have to get this boat out of the water. And what does the defendant do? He's so anxious to blame somebody else, that lack of accountability, that he starts answering and you can listen to the tape yourselves. Because you'll have the junk drive with all of this defendant's statements to Lieutenant Thompson. And what you'll hear and see is that in those moments when the lieutenant is just coming up to him and asking him, hey, do you have a trailer for your boat? How's your boat? He's talking about, oh, there was this other boat coming in the opposite direction. Thompson is not even listening to that. He's like, whatever. And he keeps going back and asking him, where do you keep your boat? Then he finally gets the information that the lieutenant wants. But he's still gathering on about some other boat. Then, when he sits down with the lieutenant at that picnic table, he builds on that line. And he starts giving more details about this phantom boat that came along. He's giving his Miranda rights. He's told anything you say can be used against you in court. You don't care. He still wants to get that line out. Under oath, he signed a written statement. It was the other boat's fault. But he didn't stop that night. He was untruthful to his attorney. You heard from his attorney twice in this case. The first time. Just to explain what interrogatories were. And that, in fact, both the defendant and his wife signed these interrogatories. Answering questions under oath about what happened. But then he was called back a second time by the defense. Boy, he couldn't say enough great things about George Pino. And how he wanted to settle things with the Puigs as fast as he could. But then I brought out the fact that, oh, really interesting. Because within six months you had filed a motion to limit his liability. And you had also filed a motion to dismiss claims of their lawsuit. Okay, this is not a civil case. And the only reason why any of that is relevant is because it shows the persistence of the lie. That he not only lied to the police. He lied to his own lawyer. Who then took those lies and incorporated them into legal pleadings. And he wasn't just lying to his lawyer. He was lying to the court system. He was lying to the family of Cathy Puig in answering those questions in the way that he did. Because he was so desperate to avoid accountability.
[00:57:50] Speaker ?: Why?
[00:57:51] Speaker 1: Because he knew this was not just an accident. People don't lie about accidents.
[00:57:58] Speaker ?: You fess up. You say, ah, my bad.
[00:58:00] Speaker 1: I didn't see the stops. I should have stopped. I'm so sorry. Because this was so much more. That's why he lied to the court system. Lied to his lawyer. Lied to the Puig's lawyer. And the Puig's themselves. A family that his family had known for years. Now, with that Puig said, I want to make it clear. He's not charged with perjury. The only relevance of those lies is to show that he knew. He had a consciousness of guilt. Because anyone that has as much experience as he has on the water knows there's no excuse on earth to justify the way he operated that boat. And, you know, it's kind of stunning behavior from the man whose wife described him as, oh, he was like the one for Camp George, right? He was the father who wanted his children to get the best education. That's from his wife. And that wanted to instill in his children an understanding of right from wrong. That sometimes actions have consequences. And that it's important to take responsibility for your actions. That's what she said he taught his daughters. To try to explain away all these lies. The defense called Dr. Diana Barrett. A concierge neurologist who saw the defendant twice, watched a video of him, heard some things that he said, and did work to do one thing and one thing only. Answer questions posed by the defense. Did he have a traumatic brain injury, a TBI? Did it cause amnesia and/or false memories without the intent to deceive? And how long would those false memories last? And she got about $30,000 to do that. Thank you. This is the witness that the defense relied on. A woman who is in private practice and won't accept insurance from patients who may need her care. This is pretty far prior from the woman that used to do work for Camilla's house. A woman who just took her marching orders from the defense to answer three self-serving questions. She said the MRI that she had been given didn't matter. The Montreal cognitive test that she gave didn't matter. During my cross-examination of her, she had to admit there was no test that she could give to the defendant. No test to prove that he had amnesia or created false memories without the intent to deceive. She had to admit when I asked her about the defendant's glasgow coma scale. Doesn't mean you're in a coma, but that is a tool that EMS, firefighters, paramedics use to assess a person's level of consciousness. I said to her, after I introduced the fire rescue report for this defendant, what was he assessed that night, September 4th of 2022? What was his glasgow coma scale? 15. What's the highest possible glasgow coma scale?
[01:02:22] Speaker ?: 15.
[01:02:23] Speaker 1: Every single one of our jurors, every single attorney in this courtroom? 15. She admitted that the defendant simply got seven staples in his head to close the wound, and he was released from the hospital the very next day. She admitted she hadn't even laid eyes on the defendant until this past February, about three and a half years after the crash. And she admitted that the defendant told her the only treatment he'd received was some therapy and psychiatric medications, and I'm not putting that stuff down. But that is not indicative of a person that had a traumatic brain injury such that he's confagulated like a person with dementia would. Well, I'll tell you what she did not want to admit. I asked her last thing when she was on the witness stand. Dr. Barrett, let me make sure I understand. You were hired to evaluate the defendant's memory surrounding the crash, but you never asked him what he remembered of the crash. It's a simple yes or no question. Yes, I did. No, I didn't. But you know that the answer is no, she didn't ask him. And she kept wiggling around. Well, you know, I didn't think that that would be important. No, no, no, no, no. Let me ask again. And note this. When the judge reads you the instructions, one of the instructions of going to ask me was the witness honest and straightforward in answering the attorney's questions. I want to ask her again. No, Dr. Barrett, I want to ask you again. You were there to assess his memory of the crash, but you never asked him what he remembered of the crash. Ultimately, she kind of says no, but you know the answer is no. Because if she had, she would have said yes. Here's what he told me. She didn't want to admit what a tremendous lack of expertise went into that $30,000 that she earned. I don't blame her. That's her choice. But you should consider her credibility when you think about the fact that she didn't ask something that basic. She told you, she based her decision that he had amnesia and, how did she say it, false memories, without the intent to deceive, based on just these four things. Who sat behind him, he couldn't remember which two girls were behind him, what the horsepower of his engines were, he said 225, they were 300, that he couldn't remember exactly what happened right after impact, and that he said that it was Nati that he recovered under the boat, not Lucy initially. But you know there's an explanation for that, that she wouldn't have known, but you know. When the defense called Hamlet Rodriguez, he was one of the most Americans that gets to the scene. We know that Hilary Candela, who was friendly with the defendant, and knew the police, and knew the Fernandez family. When Hilary Candela gets there, he might have to yell from the witness stand, which I know seems weird to yell in court. But he yells to show you, George, if you don't go down under there, I'm going to do it. That's got to be about the time when Hamlet Rodriguez is getting there. Because Hamlet says when he's yelling at him to go under the boat, the defendant does go under the boat. But what does Hamlet Rodriguez tell us that Hilary doesn't see? The defendant grabs a girl from under the boat, and does he take her to another good Samaritan vessel? Nope. He passes her off to Hamlet Rodriguez. And he's the one, he told me, who takes Lucy to the boat where you just saw the video, where people are doing CPR, where the Marine Patrol gets, puts her on the backboard, gets her onto the go fast police boat to get her to the harbor. So it makes sense that the defendant, in just those brief moments that he has of passing Lucy's body, maybe he didn't really take a good look at her. So all four of those things, he couldn't remember who was behind him, even Dr. Barrett said, I kind of can understand that, why are you looking behind you if you're going forward? The 225 versus 300 horsepower, okay, whatever, you got a detail wrong. Not remembering exactly what happened right after the fact, totally understandable. This was a terrifying thing for everyone, I'm sure, including the defendant. And the fact that initially he said that he thought it was Nazi, but then he realized, oh, no, no, no, it was Lucy. That's what she based the amnesia and the false memories without intent to deceive. But what I want to propose to you is that you don't need an expert witness. Maybe look at the totality of circumstances and say, no, this wasn't a false memory without an intent to deceive. It was a false statement made exactly with an intent to deceive when he said the other bullet passed the crash. It was a false statement and it was intended to deceive. And I submit to you, if he was willing to give a false statement with an intent to deceive about how the crash happened, And I think he was also willing to give a false statement with an intent to deceive about how much beer he had at that sandbar. They can't prove it. So I didn't charge it. So why are we defending against that? In this trial, you've heard the defense try to blame a number of different things in this case. Blame the sun, right? Maybe the sun kept him from being able to see the channel marker. But Mr. Alvair told you that at the defense request overnight, after he had testified and I had arrested the case, he did some calculations and he saw, based on the NOAA Oceanic Atmospheric, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, based on their data, he knew that at the time that that second to last track point was, the sun would have been to the defendant's right hand side. The sun isn't blinding him from seeing the channel marker, so forget that. The defense attorney says to Detective Dow, the drone operator, "Oh, well, this photograph, the water looks green, the channel marker is green. Maybe the channel marker wasn't so visible." First off, Detective Dow was like, "No, no, actually, that's just a function of the not-so-great printing of this photograph. Plus, when you're higher up, the water looks more green, but when you're closer, which you guys can see from the videos, the water's blue." You really think the Coast Guard didn't take into account, "Hmm, let's make the channel markers as hard to see as possible." So that doesn't work. Oh, remember, they also asked, "Hey, could channel marker 13A, the one before channel marker 15, could that have blocked the defendant's view of channel marker 15?" Mr. Albert, who, in contradiction to Dr. Bear, Mr. Albert said, "I did that extra work. I'm not charging anybody for it. That's integrity." Mr. Albert said, in answer to the defense attorney's question, is that the only way that channel marker 13 blocks channel marker 15, if you're so far back, you wouldn't be able to see channel marker 15 anyway. So that excuse doesn't work. The defense talks about, "Well, but if you zoom in on the chart plotter, it looks like maybe the channel marker is a little bit further off." And that's when, that was kind of hokey, but it illustrated the point. I grabbed my iPhone, and I showed you all a picture of the Mona Lisa. And if you zoom, zoom, zoom in on the picture, it doesn't look like it's the Mona Lisa anymore, even though it is. And that's exactly what they did with the GPS screen. Then, they come in and try to say, "Oh, it's the girls' arms. They're singing and dancing." But I asked Claudia Portacarrera, who was the first girl that the defense called as a witness, "Okay, you guys were singing and dancing. You've seen the video. But at the time, you're going almost 50 miles an hour facing backwards on bumping water." Like, in those moments before the crash, were you guys standing up? Were you guys waving your arms around? No, of course not. Because who's going to be doing that unrestrained in the front of a boat? It doesn't make any sense. So that excuse doesn't work. And then, this might be my favorite, the tides. It was high tide, so maybe the sign wasn't visible. As if the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard, isn't aware of the fact that the tides rise, the tides lower. And they're going to take that into account when they're placing channel markers that are there to keep boaters and passengers, everybody on the water safe. So none of these excuses hold up. When this trial began, with jury selection, you all were instructed by the judge that this defendant is presumed innocent. And each and every one of you said you can abide by that presumption. Had you not, you would not be here. We live in a country, we are blessed to live in a country where people do not have to presume their innocence. That's not how it is everywhere in the bill. Here, if the government accuses you of something, the government better have the evidence to back up those allegations. Now, if there's an instruction that the judge is going to give to you, that while the defendant is presumed innocent at the beginning of the trial, that presumption of innocence can be overcome if the prosecution does two things. To overcome the defendant's presumption of innocence. To overcome the defendant's presumption of innocence, the state must prove, one, that the crime or crimes that he's charged with were committed, and two, that the defendant committed those crimes. So I'm going to take a little bit of time now to go over those crimes, the evidence, and what the law is to try to give you a road map for when you go back into the jury room that you can follow to come to the correct and legal and wise verdict. So first, the defendant committed the crimes. That's basically a way of saying, is the right person charged in this case? There is no testimony that anyone other than that defendant operated that vote. Cammy said it. Harrow said it. Claudia said it. Nati said it. His own wife said it. He said it himself in the statements to Lieutenant Thompson. He said it in interrogatories. So, there was nobody else operating that vote. So, we're already basically halfway there. To guilty birth, because we've established, without any question, he's the person at the helm of that vessel. He was the captain of that ship. So, now we've just got to look at, did I prove the crimes of manslaughter and vessel homicide? And although the judge is going to instruct you first about manslaughter and then vessel homicide, I just want to go over with you the crime of vessel homicide first. The elements for vessel homicide are simple. First, that Luciana Cristina Fernandez is dead. You know she is. Second, that the death was caused by the operation of a vessel by George I. Pino. Nobody but this defendant operated that vessel. Third, that he operated the vessel in a reckless manner likely to cause the death of or great bodily harm to another person. The instruction tells you the defendant to be guilty about crime does not have to have intended to harm anyone. So why would the defense say, well he didn't mean it? Of course not. But if he meant it, he wouldn't be charged with these offenses, he'd be charged with something else. The judge will tell you that recklessness is more than just failure to use regular care. She will tell you that recklessness can take place in two different forms. I'm going to suggest to you both are present in this case. First, that the acts are done in a willful way. Willful doesn't mean you will Lucy Fernandez to die. But willful means you deliberately set the course, set the speed, you deliberately operated that vessel. This vessel was not on autopilot. He was the one making the decisions. Were they wise decisions? No. Did he intend the consequences of the decisions? No. But he is the one that steered the boat. He's the one that decides how fast it goes. That makes this conduct willful. Also, she will tell you that recklessness can result from what's known as wanting behavior. What is wanting? It is a conscious and intentional indifference to the consequences. Not that you want those consequences, but you're not paying attention to what the consequences might be. And that damage is likely to be done to persons or property. When you set your vessel on a course, and then are basically flying blind for as long as nine seconds into a channel marker that you know is there, that's a daunting disregard for the safety. So, did he intend the outcome? No. Did he intend the death? No. Did he intend the channel marker? No. But did he intend to change course? Did he intend to be operating at full throttle? The answer to that is yes. And that's what endangered everyone on his vessel, including himself. What witness tells you that? What witness tells you how fast he was going and what direction he was traveling? You know the one. I told you at the beginning of this trial. The witness that didn't have a voice. The witness that had the perfect memory. The witness that isn't influenced by bias, prejudice, sympathy, money or power. The witness is GPS. The GPS, that track point that I showed you, tells you everything you need to know about this defendant's recklessness. And the person who testified about that GPS data? Mr. Albert? He says to you, at great length, at my prompting, about his training and his experience. That his day job is a lieutenant in the Internal Affairs Division, the town of Palm Beach Police Department. He tells you about his years and years of experience in police work. Both with that agency, as well as with Florida Fish Wildlife Conservation Commission. He tells you about the years and years that he's been over. Since he was a kid. And he tells you about the years and years of experience and training he has in GPS, which ironically just stemmed from his love of fishing. He told me I had to start learning how to use GPS so I could find my favorite fishing holes. And I know that testimony might have seemed a little bit dry. But it was really important for you all to understand the quality of the witness that he is. With all that law enforcement and personal experience in voting. All the training and experience he's had in interpreting and analyzing GPS data. To the point where now he's a senior trainer. At the NAS block, I can't know what it seems to be. That's how good he is at what he does. And it was important for you to understand that we're not getting new junk signs. And so when he went through with you, step by step, and you have all those track marks. You can look at them in the jury room. Of how the defendant meandered his way up to the sandbar. But then was like zooming back. When he's telling you this is how fast that vessel was traveling and this is the direction it took. You had to be the one to make the choice to go that fast and to head in that direction. That's all the proof you need to know that this was reckless. And so when you go back in the jury room and you have the verdict formed in front of you. As to the crime of whether or not the defendant committed the whole homicide for operating his vote recklessly. What if he's guilty? So as to the offense of vessel homicide, I submit to you that that charge is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If there was no one else on the defendant's vote but his wife. And if he had followed that path that we know he took and if she had wound up dead. Forget about the other kids, forget about the alcohol, forget about all of that. Just the manner in which he operated that vote. Head on into a channel marker that was easily visible, that he knew was there and disregarding anything around him. And his witnesses just fly into it. He's guilty of vessel homicide. But the thing is, you can't ignore all these other factors that were in play that afternoon. You can't ignore the fact that he had brought the alcohol. That those kids had unlimited access to it. That he wasn't moderating anybody's drinking. He's drinking. He has a boat full of vulnerable teenagers who are not going to probably be at their very best if God forbid something should happen. He made the choice to be consuming alcohol. He made the choice to be operating his boat through I-95 of Biscayne Bay. As fast as it could go. And so when the judge reads you the instruction for manslaughter, she's going to read you the definition of what culpable negligence is. Manslaughter can be proven in this case in one of two different ways. And just like I said, we've proven both aspects of being reckless. I'm going to submit to you, we've proven both aspects of manslaughter. And this is why. First, you can be guilty of manslaughter if you commit an intentional act. Even if you don't need to cause death, but your intentional act causes a death, that's manslaughter. And the importance of Mr. Albert's testimony is because those track points are dropped when direction is changed. And we know the speed of the vessel based on the distance it takes, or the time it takes to travel a given distance. And we know that because he was traveling, accelerating for over nine seconds, that's not one of those speed spikes that I told you all that can happen if you're talking about very short distances. But this is a long distance over a relatively long period of time. So we know that he is intentionally committing acts, not with the intention of death, not with the intention of hitting the channel marker, but the intentional acts that he is engaged in do cause a death. That's manslaughter. But the other way that you can be guilty of manslaughter is if your actions, in their totality, result in death. If your actions meet the definition of culpable negligence. It's the judge's job to instruct you on the law, so I will wait for Judge Tinkler-Mendez to read to you the definition of culpable negligence. It's going to sound a lot, honestly, like the definition of recklessness, but it's a little bit more. And so he's charged, not just with the vessel homicide, because it wasn't just one person on board. It wasn't somebody who hadn't been consuming alcohol. It wasn't someone that didn't have a scenario where it's just a baby's wife. This is a scenario where teenagers are all alone. The level of danger that he exposed everyone to cries out for something more than just vessel homicide. And that's why he's also charged with manslaughter. And you may see to yourself, well, how can one person be charged with two different homicide charges if there's only one death? And the answer is because, yes, of course this is recklessness. So you can find him guilty of vessel homicide. But it's also, he committed an intentional act, and he acted with culpable languages. And so to be as descriptive of what his conduct was on that September afternoon, he's charged with both crimes. And I suggest that the evidence in this case proves both of those crimes beyond reasonable doubt. And if we go back to this, is the defendant's presumption of innocence overcome? I've proven these crimes were committed, and that this defendant is the one who committed them. You will have access to all the videos, photographs. You will have access to the documents that are in evidence. Those interrogatories, the fire arrest, all of that will be for you to review. To think about what the witnesses said, how they acted, who was believable, and who was not. And I'm confident that when you do that in this case, you will find that the defendant is guilty, both of manslaughter and the assault. And thank you so much for your attention. I hope you'll give your same kindness and attention to opposing counsels.
[01:26:27] Speaker 3: I heard the prosecutor say to you, a theory. What I heard the prosecutor say to you is that in the moments leading up to the crash, with about nine seconds to go, you know, that George Pena was inattentive, you might have been looking over to his wife while she was trying to text a beautiful video of the girls who had a beautiful day over at the sandbar. You might have been looking at his GPS, you might have been looking over to his right or to his left that he was inattentive. Those were her words. And if that is true, if that's the state's theory, George Pena, your job is very simple. George Pena is not guilty of a crime. He may have committed human error. He may well have been inattentive. He may not have looked up in time to see the barber to which Mabalo alighted. But that does not make him a criminal. We have highlighted for you the law. After all, that's where we are. We're in a criminal corporate in the United States of America where if your government, my government, wants to grant somebody a criminal, they have to prove he's committed a crime. Not that he was negligent. Not that he has civil liability. Footnote. All civil liability has been resolved already. Long before you were sworn in a treatment. This is not a civil case. This is not about whether by a preponderance of the evidence, the state or the, I should say, the injured passengers have established liability, civil liability. That has already been resolved. We are here today because our government wants Mr. Pena to be branded a criminal for having, by their own statement to you, been inattentive. Now let's look at what the law is because we are, after all, a court of law. And what we've done is we've taken what we understand the judge's instructions of law to be before you on the screen. It may not be so easy to read because of the distance. There are two crimes that are being charged: vessel homicide and manslaughter. Each of them required that the state prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, certain facts. And there they are before you. That George Pena operated a vessel named Pena, likely to cause death of a great bodily harm to another person. His reckless operation caused or contributed to the death of Lucy. What does it mean to be reckless, different than perhaps negligent? Reckless operation of a vessel requires the state to prove more than a failure to use ordinary care. And so even if you were to find that the operator of a motor vessel failed to use ordinary care by not looking up and seeing the marker in the few seconds before it alighted, that would be, even under the state's own theory, negligence, if that's what the state has proved. Because to prove it to be a crime, it has to be so willful or wanted, a willful or wanted disregard to the safety of persons or property.
[01:30:22] Speaker ?: Intentionally, knowing, and purposeful. Purposeful.
[01:30:28] Speaker 3: A conscious and intentional indifference to consequences. With the knowledge that damage is likely to be done. It's not enough that a human being has failed to do everything he could or she could at a moment in time. This crime requires a purposeful act of indifference. If we look to the manslaughter charge, it specifically tells you it has to be an act that's not merely negligent. It's right there in the law. An intent to commit an act that is not merely negligent. If we turn to the next page. Culpable negligence. So you've got recklessness as one principle of law that the state is trying to apply against George Pino. They've also tried to apply this principle of culpable negligence. It's like negligence, but it's negligence plus a whole lot more. It's more than a failure to use ordinary care towards others.
[01:31:53] Speaker ?: It must be gross and flagrant.
[01:31:56] Speaker 3: Think of those words in your daily life. Gross and flagrant. Like in the NBA just came to me. People commit fouls, NBA National Basketball Association. There are fouls and then there are flagrant fouls. You know a flagrant foul when you see it.
[01:32:15] Speaker ?: Flagrant.
[01:32:17] Speaker 3: It's not that when the basketball player is going to the hoop and his arm gets hit by another player, even if by accident. That may be a foul, but it's only flagrant when it gets to the point that it's so intentional, so diabolical. And even then, even then, referees have to go back to the screen to see just how flagrant it was. If we're going to put a man, we're going to label a man a criminal. It's got to be fretted, flagrant, and gross, with an utter disregard for the safety of others. And that when George Pino, thank you, that when George Pino that morning woke up when he decided he was going to host a group of friends of his daughter, that somewhere along the line that day, his brain somehow shifted into this gross and flagrant world. That he made conscious decisions. Because that's what the law requires before we called him a criminal. And I'm sorry I'm getting a bit agitated. It's an emotional day. Because we recognize that there was a lot of hurt that came of this event. A whole lot of hurt. A whole lot of pain. Pain that endures till today. And will endure beyond today. So we have to acknowledge that. And that we all feel it. And I'm sure you felt it as the prosecutor over and again played videos of the injuries and drama and chaos that ensued from the crash. Heartbreaking.
[01:34:18] Speaker ?: Heartbreaking.
[01:34:22] Speaker 3: Seeing a young girl that we now know wouldn't survive that event. Having to see CPR and medical examiner photos. But the law says that we don't judge these events based on sympathy. Because we all have sympathy for those that were injured. Those that passed away. Those whose injuries will continue on beyond today. But we don't judge someone in a criminal courtroom under these statutes based upon the injuries and the fatality to turn what would ordinarily be just an accident into a criminal homicide. I heard the prosecutor try to give you an example. And I thought it was telling. She said, "Oh, if someone ran a stop sign and they had a fender bender, that would be just negligent." I think that's what she said. But if that same car, same driver, ran the stop sign, but instead of a fender bender, a mother with a stroller was walking in the crosswalk and got hit and severely injured or worse. Would that change the character of the manner in which the person who was driving the car operated that vehicle? The level of injury, the death that might ensue under those circumstances, does not then define the level of recklessness, the level of culpable negligence that we all are here to evaluate. And so with that framework, and with a further instruction that the burden of proof is on the state, if the government, your government, my government, intends to seek a criminal conviction, the government, the state, must prove its case. Not guess someone guilty, not speculate someone guilty, but prove that someone has committed a crime. And that's why the judge told you that we begin, each of us, as a citizen of this great country, citizen of the great state of Florida, we all struggle with the presumption of innocence. And that presumption carries with all of us, whenever we are accused of something in a criminal courtroom, until proven guilty. And the burden is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And the burden is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It's the highest burden we impose upon our courts and our juries. We weigh all the evidence, but if there's not an abiding conviction of guilt, or if there's one which is not stable, but one which waivers and vacillates, then the charge is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And the law requires, as part of your oath, to return a not guilty verdict. That is the law. That's why we are here. And so, in evaluating the evidence, I'd like to first begin with just a few fact points that the prosecution has talked about. The prosecutor said to you, she hasn't charged Mr. Pino with voting under the influence, so she doesn't understand why, I think she said, we have made such a big deal about Mr. Pino not being impaired. I ask you to recall the opening statement of the prosecutor, when you first heard from her, and she said to you that Mr. Pino had two beers, and she did this little signal with her fingers as if it really wasn't two beers. And she said it to you again today, that maybe he had more. Maybe he had more. That is not evidence. A lawyer's assertion is not evidence. A prosecutor's assertion is not evidence. Just because she wants to argue it doesn't make it evidence. We had to bring out the evidence because the state was suggesting to you that it was more than two beers. That's why we are talking about it now, because the state is talking about it. And what was the evidence about beer consumption on that day by Mr. Pino? We'll talk a moment in a moment about the consumption of alcohol by the passengers and other people at the sandbar that day. Is there any evidence before you, even one witness, that has said to you that George Pino appeared impaired, buzzed, in some way compromised? Is there even one witness of all the people that were at the sandbar that day, of all the people that testified at this trial? No single person has said that George Pino was in any way impaired by alcohol. That should have ended. We shouldn't have to talk about alcohol. But we have to because the prosecutor keeps insinuating that maybe there was more than two beers. Of course, the number of beers isn't the issue since there's no evidence of it. It's the fact that Mr. Pino's consumption of two beers did not result in impairment. And you heard it from Lieutenant Thompson. He told Mr. Pino that it's perfectly acceptable over the course of the hours that Mr. Pino was there to have consumed two beers over several hours that afternoon.
[01:40:33] Speaker ?: It's on tape.
[01:40:34] Speaker 3: Lieutenant Thompson told Mr. Pino, Mr. Shapiro questioned Mr. Thompson, Lieutenant Thompson, who confirmed it's true. We do not break the law by consuming a couple of beers over the course of several hours and then operate a motor vessel. And you know that other adults that afternoon also consumed alcohol and operated a motor vessel to include Lucy's dad. And no one other than the prosecutor is suggesting anything about the consumption of alcohol having affected the ability of any of the adults that afternoon to operate their motor vessel. That should end it. But it doesn't with this prosecutor. She continues to insinuate that you should find what's not proven. And certainly you can't find that beyond a reasonable doubt. Later I'll go witness by witness to show you that if this is not coming from me, I took notes of every witness's testimony on this and other subjects and we'll talk about them. So that's the issue of impairment of alcohol. Let's talk about safety and speed. The prosecutor is emphasizing that Mr. Pino's motor vessel was traveling that day as fast as 47 miles per hour. Every single witness who testified that was on the boat, and I'm going to go through it one by one, felt the speed was safe. They'd been on his boat before. It felt no different. Nothing unusual about the way Mr. Pino was operating his vessel. He wasn't drag racing. He wasn't doing donuts in the water. He isn't like one of those jet skaters that's trying to jump weights and do all sorts of thrill-seeking activities. He was not, contrary to what the prosecutor said to you today, he was not trying to be the cool dad. I don't know where that came from.
[01:42:49] Speaker ?: The cool dad.
[01:42:50] Speaker 3: That Mr. Pino, according to the prosecutor, was in some great rush to get back to Ocean Reef because the party that he had planned for his daughter was going to start at 9 o'clock. It was then 6:37 when the accident happened, two and a half hours to go until party time. As if to suggest Mr. Pino, in his mind, was worried that the girls wouldn't be ready on time and that he was then going to throw caution to the wind and drive the boat in a way that he had never driven before. Because you've heard nothing. No evidence that Mr. Pino has ever, ever had an issue with driving his motor vessel. And many of the passengers have been on Mr. Pino's boat before. That motor vessel, Ramballo, is built to handle that speed. Actually, it's built to handle more speed. You may recall that that boat had two 300 horsepower engines. That boat is rated to have two 350 horsepower engines. That boat is built to handle an additional 100 horsepower of speed. He equipped it with motors that would provide less speed than the motorboat is equipped to handle. The passengers were seated exactly where the manufacturer of that boat designates passengers to sit. Every passenger's butt was on a cushion. None of the passengers were standing. None of the passengers were sitting on the gunnel. You by now know what the gunnel is. That's the surface at the front. And to suggest that Mr. Pino, Reckless Homicide Festival. To suggest that he was being flagrant.
[01:44:54] Speaker ?: Next thing. Sorry. There you go. Perfect.
[01:45:01] Speaker 3: That he was being gross and flagrant and disregarding their safety. By having the passengers sit exactly where a company that's been in business for decades. I think this lieutenant out there said they've been bought out by some huge conglomerate. You didn't hear one ounce of evidence that Bravalo had notified his operators that there should be no passengers seated in the designated seating. You did not see a label on the boat saying, "Do not sit here." I mean, we live in a society where every package has a warning on it. You buy a pack of cigarettes and it says, "Warning. If you continue to smoke these, it may cause cancer." You go to McDonald's and it has to caution you that they have hot coffee in a hot coffee cup. We give warnings to people for any possible liability. You come home from the dry cleaners with your shirt on a hanger, you take the plastic bag off and if you read the bag it says, "Careful, don't put it over your head." You could suffocate if you wrap a plastic bag around your head. We are a society that is so litigious that we warn everybody of any possible misuse of a product. And yet you did not hear one ounce of evidence, not a witness, not even Lieutenant Albert tell you that Bravalo has suggested to any of its operators over the last 40 or 50 years that the boat is not equipped to have passengers seated in the designated passenger seats. And yet the prosecutor is suggesting to you that he is driving the boat in a reckless manner or in a gross and flagrant manner by having passengers sit where they are designated to sit. That is just not fair. That is not fair to the operator of the motor vessel. Just not fair. Let's talk about the speed. How many witnesses testified that the speed at which those witnesses were traveling, some of them law enforcement officers, others just ordinary boaters like David Rodriguez whose boat can achieve 80 miles per hour, that he was doing 50 to 55 miles an hour that day. There was nothing about the speed at which the Bravalo was traveling that was at all excessive, gross, or flaming. And let's say what we all know to be the absolute truth here. If George had not hit, if George had not hit the piling, nothing bad would happen. The conditions were ideal. The waters were calm. It was not a windy day. It was not raining. It was no lightning. There was no oncoming boat traffic. It was wide open bay. The speed had nothing to do with the injuries. The cause of the injuries was the crash. Of course, the faster you go, the more likely someone's going to get hurt. Of course, if he bumps in at one mile an hour, nobody gets hurt. But the speed in and of itself did not create the danger. Hitting the marker was the problem. So we all understand that, I hope. No one on the boat asked George Pino to slow down. No one said, "Hey, I'm scared we're going too fast." Not Mr. Pino's wife, not his daughter, and not any of the other passengers. And with the speed at which Mr. Pino was traveling, even at 47 miles per hour, the state's theory is that with nine seconds to go, with nine seconds to go, Mr. Pino was on a course that would take it into the marker. And as you may recall, when I examined some of the witnesses, with nine seconds to go, there's plenty of time to simply turn the wheel slightly and avoid the marker, if George Pino had seen it as he was approaching the marker. Of course, if the state's theory was, he was for those six or seven seconds inattentive, that would explain why he hit the marker. He had plenty of time to do it, that is to change force. But because of inattentiveness, according to the prosecutors, he didn't change course in time. Not reckless, conscious, flagrant disregard. This Rovalo vote is yacht certified. That means that it's built to take that many passengers. There is no weight limitation. This idea that a thousand pounds of passengers is going to create a dangerous situation. No one has said that Rovalo warned George Pino or any of its other operators of this state's theory that they're advancing to you in this courtroom. So we've done it for the moment with the alcohol used by Mr. Pino. I'm talking to you now about the speed at which he was traveling and the way he was driving. And so I want to ask you to imagine on that day, if there was a drone watching Mr. Pino's operation of the vessel, both from Ocean Reef to Billy's Point to the sandbar and back. If any of us was watching, would someone have said, that boat traveling, that way it's traveling, that guy's driving like a lunatic. Because that's what this crime is basically suggesting. Because you know a reckless driver when you see it. It's the lunatic on I-95 cutting through cars, going 30, 40 miles over the speed limit. You know the reckless driver when you see that person. George Pino, his boat was traveling on straight lines at speeds that Rovalo has designed it to travel at. In a zone where there is no speed limit, no posted speed limit, not then, in 2020, 2022, and not today. If it was so inherently dangerous to travel at speeds in the 40s, you have to ask why there is no speed limit posted there. That's what I think, Lieutenant Albert, when I questioned him. There are speed limits all through Biscayne Bay, on Miami Beach, Malloy Channel, I spoke to him about that. Posted speed limits like you see on a street. And yet, this channel, Cutter Bay, had no speed limit in 2022 and none today. It's not fair, it's not right, to tell George Pino after the fact that there should be a speed limit there. I'd like to talk to you now about the government's emphasis about George's imperfect, inaccurate, unreliable memory of the crash. After the crash. After the crash, and we'll talk more about George's efforts to help people after he regained consciousness. But for now, it's undisputed that as a result of the crash, the illusion, George Pino lost consciousness. He was laying on the floor of the boat unconscious. Witnesses thought he was dead. Bleeding from his head. Four of his front teeth. The prosecutor said no big deal, because the impact only shaved off part of his teeth, that we might have a better argument, I think the prosecutor was suggesting, if he lost the teeth completely. So, George Pino, by all accounts unconscious on the floor of the boat, he hit his face on the floor of the boat and then the back of his head hit the boat. He had two places of impact.
[01:53:54] Speaker ?: He was knocked unconscious. He was knocked unconscious. We asked a doctor to come testify, because the state did not produce a medical witness on the issue of George's injury.
[01:53:54] Speaker 3: We brought you the only medical testimony. We brought you the only medical testimony. We brought you the only medical testimony on George's injury. We brought you the only medical testimony on the floor of the boat. We brought you the only medical testimony on the floor of the boat. He had two places of impact. He was knocked unconscious. He had two places of impact.
[01:54:02] Speaker ?: He was knocked unconscious.
[01:54:02] Speaker 3: He was knocked unconscious. We asked a doctor to come testify, because the state did not produce a medical witness on the issue of George's injury. We brought you the only medical testimony about that, Dr. Barrow. And before we get into the substance of George's injury, we brought you the only medical testimony about that, Dr. Barrow. And before we get into the substance of her testimony, let's talk about the cross-examination of Dr. Barrow to attack her because she charges for her time. This is someone who's been a professor at medical school. She's been a doctor for decades. Her credentials are unimpeachable. And yet, the prosecutor is focusing on how much money she charges for her time, that she charges for all her patients. The prosecutor was making something of her preference not to have to process insurance for her patients. They're able to seek reimbursement from the insurance company, but she doesn't do that. She accepts direct payment, and then if they want to be reimbursed from their insurance company, that's okay. As if to suggest you shouldn't consider her testimony because she doesn't accept insurance and because she doesn't work for free. Now, I never asked Lieutenant Albert how much he was charging the state for his time. He's also a paid witness. Because I wasn't going to go there as if to suggest to you that a man who for decades has been a law enforcement officer would lie to you for money. And I think that's what the prosecutor is suggesting that Dr. Barrett did. That's frightening. Because that's what she's suggesting to you. That because she doesn't accept insurance, and because she charges for her time. After all, someone had to pay so she could go to undergrad and medical school and residency. Those of you who have family members that have become doctors and specialists. It takes a decade to get to the point where you can be someone per level. And rather than bring you a rebuttal witness, they brought you no one. They attacked the doctor for telling you what is black and white law of medicine. The principles of medicine. Medicine, she explained to all of us, makes a diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury focus on what happened at the time of impact and in the 72 hours after. Not three years later. And Dr. Barrett explained to you that because George was seen unconscious by multiple witnesses. And because it was obvious that he had amnesia because he was recalling inaccurately so many of the details of the crash. The diagnosis was beyond dispute. The man was unconscious. He suffered a traumatic brain injury. Now the word traumatic I think is a word that is giving the prosecutor some concern. Because it sounds traumatic. It should be like he needed to go to a hospital and stay there for a month. But that's not how concussions work. And the doctor explained it to you. And so the questions of a lawyer who worked for the state, not for free by the way, who is attacking a doctor, a doctor, a professor, the questions of the lawyer are not evidence. The evidence comes from the witness stand. And the only evidence that was presented to you about the issue of George's memory came from an accomplished doctor, one who's a professor, one who has published, albeit she doesn't accept insurance. And she explained to you that George Pina, having suffered a concussion, diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, unable to accurately recall events related to the crash, including, for example, which boat he was on. He thought he was on the boat that had the 225 horsepower engines that he had previously. He thought he had hit the left side of the boat. He thought the left side of his boat had hit the marker when it was the right side. He recalled to Lieutenant Thompson that it was Nazi he had pulled out from under the boat when we know it was someone else. He was elusive. All of those mistakes made it clear that George Pina was suffering from a TBI, a concussion, and that his memory would not be reliable. It doesn't mean he had total amnesia. The prosecutor was suggesting to you that he should remember nothing to convince you that he's had amnesia and what we call, what they call in the medical world, confabulation. Filling in details about the event from past memories or other memories. And so when George Pina was recounting what he remembered from the crash, and he thought he remembered that there was a wave that came from another boat, that was his memory of it. It may not be reliable, but there are two things that hold true. First, the science establishes that those are the kinds of failed memories and inaccurate memories and false memories that happen after a concussion. And second, it doesn't tell us, and we don't rely upon it, and you don't have to rely upon it, in deciding what actually did cause the accident. Was there another boat with a wave? You can disregard it altogether. And you remember Mr. Shapiro, when he was questioning Lieutenant Thompson, confirmed that no one else saw a boat out there that day coming back from that marker area immediately after the crash. And so we assume there was no other boat for purposes of deciding, and for you to decide, whether George Pina acted recklessly or conscious disregard for safety. And because there was no other boat, and because the conditions were ideal, the state really has no theory of why George should be labeled a criminal. Because it's not like George was going and racing through incoming traffic, going zigzagging out of boats, and then hit the marker. It was a perfectly, as everyone said, it was like the ideal day to go voting. And it comes back to what I told you earlier when we started, that what the state is telling you is that George made a mistake. He didn't see the marker. And now we're going to talk about what's left of the case, the criminal case, where the state has no theory other than to bring to your attention things that would, they try to influence your decision based on facts that have nothing to do with the operation of the motor vessel. Let's start with underage drinking. And it was a subject of our jury selection when we talked about this early on. Whether the girls, the passengers were 17 or 27, the age makes no difference. We're not here to judge these parents based on their decision to allow 17-year-old high school seniors to drink. None of them were operating the boat. All of them were seated where they're supposed to sit. There was a life preserver for each and every one available. True, none of them was wearing one, but the law doesn't require it. George complied with the law by having a life preserver available for every single passenger on that boat. Nothing more was required. And what the state is saying to you is that every time someone comes on your boat and has drinks, and I don't know if it's limited by age, but now the operator of the motor vessel needs to put a life preserver on every drinking passenger. Now, I assume that doesn't apply on big cruise ships, which are famous for people going drinking, or big yachts maybe. I don't know where the line is going to be drawn in the future, but beware if you're a boater. Beware, because you take a group of people out on your boat and they have a few drinks. Some prosecutor will say that because you didn't put a life preserver on that passenger, you are now a reckless boating operator. Because that's what she's saying. But she focuses on the age again, I think, to do two things. It's really, of course, much more painful to know that a young person passed. And let me point out that I think the medical examiner told us that there was no evidence that Lucy had any blood alcohol in her system when they tested her. So I don't think there was any evidence that Lucy was drinking. I don't think there was any evidence about that at all. Some of the other girls were, for sure. And nothing about Lucy did. But it sounds to me like what the prosecutor wants you to do is say he's a bad parent because he, and by the way, the other parents at the San Mar, to include Lucy's parents, are bad parents. And so let's convict them of being irresponsible parents and call them reckless and callous. The underage or any age drinking of the passengers had nothing to do with why the boat hit the market. I hope that's clear by now. Nor did the absence of a kill switch. Those of you that may not have been on a boat before may have tried to explain it. It's this like string that you attach to a button on the console so that if the pilot, the operator, is dislodged or falls into the water and automatically stops the engines. And the prosecutor wanted you to know that there's no evidence that George had a kill switch. Not required by law. Would not have changed the outcome here. But the prosecutor wanted you to know that. And that the flares that were on the boat were expired. Even though I brought out through Lieutenant Alder, even expired flares can serve the function. Although it doesn't comply literally with the regulations. And of course, flares had nothing to do with this case. And having unexpired flares wouldn't have changed the outcome here. So now I'd like to go, now I'd like to spend some time talking about the witnesses.
[02:05:42] Speaker ?: That's the evidence. The people you heard from.
[02:05:43] Speaker 3: So that you have no doubt that when I share something with you, I am doing my very best to rely on the evidence and not on my theory or my argument. I've honored a lie and I want you to please rely. It's your oath on the evidence. And I sequenced them differently than when in the order that you heard them to try to do it in a more organized fashion. I'm not particularly famously organized, but I've tried my best so that we can cover the subject together in a meaningful way. Everything starts at Ocean Reef. That's the place where the Pinots were celebrating their daughter's 18th birthday. And in addition to the virtual mass and the pickleball tournament that George organized and the boat ride that he had organized, there was going to be an event that night at nine o'clock dinner, the end of the night. After, I guess, the Florida State game, the Florida State game that was being played that evening. And George Pinot organized the dinner to start at nine and it was going to go until 11. And you heard from a witness named Araceli Alvarez. She was the event planner at Ocean Reef. That they could show up late and stay late because there was no other event afterward. And I thought that that's important because the prosecutor's theory is that George became reckless. He became indifferent to people's safety because he wanted to make sure the girls were Instagram ready in time for this party. That's their theory. He was worried about them being Instagram ready. And that he'd be willing to risk the lives of these girls so that they could shower on time. Then we have the testimony of the people that attended the sandbar and the events of the day. It included Lucy's dad, Andres. And here's what he testified to as part of the state's presentation, including the answers to the questions that were asked on cross-examination. He was not concerned that George Pinot had consumed too much alcohol. He himself had consumed alcohol. He felt he was able to operate his motor vessel. He did operate his motor vessel. He drove his motor vessel to the exact same place that George Pinot would drive his motor vessel. He allowed his daughter to drink. It was part of the so-called culture. He moved Ceci Pinot almost his entire life. There was a loving relationship between these families. He was at the sandbar until at least 5:41 p.m., and we know it's 5:41 p.m. that there's a photograph of the Fernandez. I think it's a -- I was going to say -- I don't remember the mark of the boat, but it's a 20-footer, more or less. And you recall Mr. Fernandez is floating in the boat, in the water behind the boat, and that was time-stamped 5:41 p.m. And then George Pinot left at 6:18 p.m. from the sandbar. So up until 5:41 p.m., at least, sometime after the Fernandez boat leaves the area. Mr. Fernandez had not remembered until we examined him the other day that actually he was planning to attend the sandbar. He changed his mind. We know that because we produced a text message where he told George, "For sure, I'll be at the sandbar." But then he changed his mind. That's fine. And he did come out. And you heard nothing to suggest that any of the adults at the sandbar thought that there were too many passengers on George Pinot's boat. That's very important, mind you, because the state's theory is too many people sitting on that boat to be safe. The same passengers that landed at the sandbar from Ocean Reef, the 14 people on board, were the same 14 people that went back. So if it was not reckless and not flagrant and not consciously indifferent to have 14 people in that boat coming to the sandbar, the same should hold true going back to Ocean Reef, and if any of the adults or the parents at the sandbar thought there was something unsafe about these underage girls who've been drinking going back on Pinot's boat where they came from, they could say so, not one ounce of evidence that George Pinot was told by any of the adults there that day, that, "Hey, George, too many people on your boat," or anything of the sort. The four passengers testified, Tammy Alvarez, Carolina Monterrey, Claudia Porto Carrero, and Natalia Reef. Tammy Alvarez testified that after the elision, she thought Pinot was dead. On the way to Billy's Point, she felt safe and comfortable. There was no unsafe driving by Mr. Pinot. She had no reason to believe he was impaired. No sense of danger, excessive speed, or risk on the return trip before the crash. Here's the quote I wrote down. "When Mr. Pinot was driving his boat back from Billy's Point, did you feel that he was driving in a dangerous way?" The answer, no. She did not notice any perceptible change in speed, and she remembered that George made sure that everybody was seated when he would expect a prudent operator to do it. The prosecutor will use that against George by saying, "George, because you told everybody to sit down, you knew you were going to do something dangerous." So, imagine that argument from our government. By doing something prudent, by having everyone sit down as is proper, it's, in the state's view...
[02:12:55] Speaker ?: ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. ...and the state's view. Thank you. Thank you.
[02:14:33] Speaker 3: She testified that for a split second she saw Pino lying between the consul with his eyes closed, blood on his head, and thought he was dead. She said that she and Holly Reeve, Nati, had never been confused for any of the other girls like Lucy. And that was important because George inaccurately thought initially that he had pulled Nati from under the boat. So those four passengers testified. Of course, the state will emphasize that some of the girls themselves were intoxicated. Ed, can we put on the screen Exhibit T right here? Hang on. Thanks. If the state had another witness to contradict the four passengers on the boat, they could call any one of the witnesses on the list that was provided as Exhibit T. We did, we had Mrs. Pino do a count of individuals in the sandbox. By her count, 13 girls, eight boys, 15 adults with 15 adults for 36 total. The state did not call any witness from the sandbar to contradict the evidence that I just discussed with you. Now, Cecilia Pino, the mom, no one is suggesting that she is suicidal or homicidal. She was concerned about her own safety and that of her daughter, little Ceci, and the girls who she's known since most of them were born. There's no suggestion that she would get on a boat with someone who was intoxicated, driving at lunatic speeds, and subject herself, her daughter, and these girls who she loved to danger. Because if you find that George was doing this, you're basically saying, so too was Cecilia Pino, that the mother of little Ceci, the camp mom, for lack of a better word, that she too, she too was, quote, reckless in allowing her husband to operate the vessel. It's the only inference you can draw. What else would you say? And not at one moment in time did Cecilia Pino, the mom, say, hey George, slow down. She didn't feel there was any danger. None of the passengers said, hey George, slow down. That's the unrebutted testimony. Give me a break, I can take a break. 36 people at the sandbar, 15 of them adults, sharing an afternoon and sharing alcohol. The state put before you the picture of all the empties, the empty bottles. So the Pinos serve as basically the garbage can for that afternoon. That boat becomes one huge garbage can. And everybody puts all the garbage on their boat. And no good deed goes unpunished. And no good deed goes unpunished. Because now the state parades before you all of the bottle. And so being responsible citizens is now evidence against them. Mrs. Pino was, she told you I brought it up right at the beginning. She felt totally comfortable motoring along. And we put up A28. I'm sorry, D figure. This is a picture of a timestamp at about 6:31 p.m. And I'm just going to put the full screen first. There you go, that's good. So I'm hoping everyone can see. This is a picture from the stern. That's the word we use in voting, the rear of the boat. That's George Pino with the hat, white hat. And Ceci, his wife, sitting next to him. You can actually see the sun catching the right side of his face. And he's staring into the sunset, so to speak. Although it's about an hour and a half before sunset. And of course, the state is critical of questions that are asked by the defense about the sun and the tides and all of the circumstances. But of course, the reason why all of these questions are asked is to get the evidence out to you, so you can evaluate the facts. And so, for example, if it was 8:00 in the morning, the sun would be to the east on his left. And so, it might be very important in understanding how the sun creates glare off of the water surface in deciding what visibility someone might have late in the afternoon. So, the state brought you no evidence, no discussion, no analysis of that. But what you have is George Pino on this boat, and all of you had an opportunity to see the boat in person. George Pino is not six-foot-eight inches tall like Paul Hummerich, whose head would be a foot above George Pino. And you can get a sense, because some of you stood on the boat, and you can see that the boat, when it's on plane, and I'm doing a profile, the boat's bow comes up. On plane means the boat is already accelerated, over the hump, so to speak, and is now riding on a plane, that's what they call it. And so, this is the windshield, so the 47 miles per hour that the prosecutor was talking about, the wind, there's a windshield, for that reason exactly. It's not like a motorcycle, which has, some of them have no windshield, this one has a windshield. And on this boat, if we can, put our seatbelt. There's the bow seating that we've talked about. This one doesn't have cushions on it right now, because this is after the fact, but this is where the passengers were seated. And you already heard the testimony that their torsos and their heads would protrude above this gunnel, the freeboard of the boat. And those of you that saw it, probably took note that that boat, when it's floating in the water, that bow of the boat, you can decide for yourself, you all saw it, you can decide for yourself, how high is it above the water line, when it's floating? And the operator, who's a foot shorter than Lieutenant Albert, what is he looking at if he looks to the front? Certainly, he's going to see the passengers that are sitting there, who are facing him. We'll talk about that more in a moment. Ceci Pino, in the picture I just asked Mr. Amarolino to show you, she's actually in the process of sending a text using her phone. Now, let's understand the rules of the road, because the navigation rules have been presented to you. There's no requirement that a boat operator have a separate person to serve as a lookout. We're not the lookout rule. I can drive my boat all by myself, provided that I'm looking where I'm going and I'm serving as the lookout for my boat. I just want to be sure there's no confusion here. I asked the witness very clearly. The operator can be the lookout. You can have more than one lookout if you'd like, for sure. And then, you'll hear in a moment, or you'll see it when we talk about it, the operator's head is on a swivel. Because when one's operating a boat, a boat on the open bay, there are no traffic signals. There are no yellow lines and white lines. There are these markers from time to time. But for the most part, it's just open bay and potentially boat traffic. And so, no different than driving a car, you need to look where you're going. I remember that from when I was a kid. I'd like to have to say, hey, son, look where you're going. And if you don't look where you're going because you're inattentive, you might fall. If you don't look where you're going because you're distracted, you might trip. Or, as might be the case according to the state, if you don't look where you're going at some point in time, you might hit something. That's what we call a crash, an accident. And if that's what happened here, it's not a crime. The judge will instruct you about those navigation rules. In the state of Florida, the law requires operators of vessels upon its waters to follow the navigation rules. However, a violation of these rules, individually or cumulatively, is not sufficient by itself to constitute culpable negligence or recklessness. Even if an operator violates one rule, or even multiple rules, individually or cumulatively, that is not enough, in and of itself, to establish recklessness or negligence. It's back to whether you're driving a car or driving a boat. If you fail to see the stop sign, it could even be a stop sign that you've passed a hundred times. If you're not paying attention that day, you're going to work and you're thinking about something else, you fail to stop at the stop sign and something awful happens. And that's what we call an accident. Thank you. And like when you're driving to work every day, when you get into a routine, just draw on your own life experience. Each of you has life experience to bring to the courthouse. You've driven this path a hundred times. Sometimes you leave your house and get to work and you don't remember passing half the places that you know are on the way. You just never notice them. You are just daydreaming. Who knows what you're thinking about? My wife will forgive me for saying this. She runs over that same pothole every time. That you should know by now there's a pothole down the street. Don't run over the pothole. It doesn't make people criminals for being human and overlooking those things. Particularly when your brain is on autopilot. Not real autopilot like a boat. But you're just coming along doing your routine. And if all the stake proves to you is that George Pino was on his way back to Ocean Reef as he always was. And he overlooked marker 15. And he hit it. He'll be held accountable in civil court as he was. But that doesn't make him a criminal. Mrs. Pino, to finish her testimony, corroborated what every other witness testified. Her husband suffered a head injury, fractured teeth, stitched elbow, a leg hash. It's beyond dispute. But what the stake does to try to, again, avoid dealing with the lack of a theory of criminality. Instead, it's focusing on that the Pinos, several months after the accident. With George suffering from the post-traumatic stress. You've heard he's on psychiatric medications. They go on a family trip to the panhandle. And for maybe the first time in four months, he breaks out a smile with his daughters. And I think what they're saying to you is that that should convince you that George's lack sympathy. Because he was smiling and one of his daughters posted the picture. That you should find him guilty because he had the nerve to smile for a photograph with his daughters. The first smile he might have mustered in many months and maybe very few since. And perhaps in the most awkward moment of the trial, knowing that Mrs. Pino had spent much of her motherhood with her daughter and her daughter's friends, including Lucy. She's confronted with a photograph of Lucy by the prosecutor saying, That's not your daughter, is it? Why would somebody do that? Why would that question be asked? Mrs. Pino explained to you she didn't see the accident. And that's why when she was in that civil case, having to explain what she knew, that she had to rely on her husband's memory, which we know from the science may not be reliable, but that's all she knew about the cause of the accident. You've heard from several good Samaritans. Hilary Pandela, Hamlet Rodriguez, and David Rodriguez. These were voters who came upon the scene. Hilary Pandela, a gentleman, he did know George Pino by coincidence. He remembers seeing George looking dazed and in shock. That when Hilary Pandela screamed out to George to look under the boat, the first time George didn't seem to register the instruction. Second time he did, and George Pino went under the boat and brought Lucy back from underneath. Hamlet Rodriguez was the person to whom George Pino handed off Lucy so she could get to a boat. Hamlet Rodriguez, a former water bolo player, did everything he could to help him. He said he was swallowing water against a strong burning until someone pulled him out. He left the scene around 705, Hamlet Rodriguez, who had been cruising at 50 to 55 miles per hour, sped up to 70 miles per hour to get to the scene. Yes, of course, he sped up because it was an emergency situation, but he said it felt perfectly safe to travel at those speeds. He saw a mature woman bleeding who said a girl was missing. Likely Ceci Pino, since that was the only adult passenger on the boat that he saw bleeding. I think she told you she was hospitalized after that night. Mr. Pino by then was apparently hanging on to the capsized boat after he had passed Lucy off to Hamlet Rodriguez. David Rodriguez described Pino very in shock, crying, but did comprehend instructions. Pino kept asking David, are all the girls okay? Pino would not get out of the water until he was assured that every girl was out of the water. That was 7.04 p.m., I believe, was the time stamp on that. He was asked to look at his camera what time did he photograph George Pino still in the water. 7.04. The accident occurred according to the GPS at 6.37 p.m. 25 minutes, if my math is not wrong, that George Pino stayed with that boat until everybody was out of the water. And to get out of the water, George Pino had to negotiate a swim platform with a tie bar that David Rodriguez explained was no easy task. And David Rodriguez took the unusual step to put his face in George Pino's face to see if George Pino smelled like alcohol, had bloodshot eyes, slurred his speech. And David Rodriguez, who was curious, maybe even suspicious, I think he said, was satisfied that George Pino was not under the influence of alcohol, that alcohol was not impairing George Pino. And we're talking now 20 minutes after the election. Maybe 25 to be more precise. Then the first responders came to the scene. You heard about Officer Bruto, now retired. He was the first officer on the scene. He saw George Pino get out under his own power. No stumbling. Even Bruto was concerned about a concussion. He said safety first. George was had a head injury. But still, George Pino was able to keep his balance on a narrow six-inch gun. No signs of impairment, said Bruto. Speech not slurred, no balance problems. I mean, you talk about taking a sobriety test. That is probably the most difficult sobriety test anyone could take. Bruno himself traveled at near-top speed at 52 to 54 miles per hour in emergency mode. Quote, here was the question. The conditions allowed you to travel safely at nearly 54 or 52 to 54 miles per hour. In other words, the top speed that your missile is capable of. Correct? Answer it. Correct. So you have an opinion from a law enforcement officer. that the speed is safe to travel. First responder, Peter Delgado, a sergeant with the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. He triaged Mr. Pino, he rendered first aid. He confirmed, of course, that no life-saving devices, personal flotation devices are required to be worn. The Pino vessel had the required PFDs. None are required to be worn. He's the officer who began talking to us about those markers, the staggered markers in Cutter Bank. And how staggering the markers, as I think you'll see in a few minutes, it can, is less simple, let's say it that way, when the markers are staggered versus red, green, red, greener, depending on the sight you're looking for. He could see that Pino was an injured passenger, bleeding from his head, and he told Pino do not go to sleep because he was concerned that Pino had a concussion and going to sleep would be dangerous for someone with a concussion. He, too, observed no signs of impairment. And no other officer on the scene reported to Delgado or to any other person who's testified in the trial, any signs of impairment. John Dalton with the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, he transported the girls from the accident scene to Elliot Key. He testified, and this is the best quote I have about speed, quote, no more than 40, 45, maybe, at max because they were panic-stricken and begged him not to drive fast and it was getting dark. as an officer saying 40 to 45 is not fast. The opposite of not fast means not slow, but it's certainly it's safe. Let's call it that. That's what the officer called it. The girls on Dalton's boat were sitting, I believe they were sitting, yes, seated on the floor and console at the bow, the front of the boat. By then it was nighttime, doing it in the 40s at night. Question, and you felt in those conditions that was a safe speed for you to travel? Answer, yes, sir. He's the one who talked about keeping your head on a swivel, that the operator of the boat has to keep his head on a swivel. And what that means is as someone's operating a boat, since there's no traffic lights, no stop signs, no yield signs, no turn signals, no turn signals, which means that if a boat is coming behind you faster, that boat could come up behind you and so while you're operating a boat, you've got to take a look from time to time, you've got to swivel, look at your instruments, look at your passengers, and if it takes you more than six or seven seconds to do all of that in one swivel, you might just hit the marker. Lieutenant Thompson testified, he's the witness to whom George Pino candidly said, hey, I had two beers. And it was Thompson who explained to them that's okay. It's not illegal to drink an operative boat. Those were the words of Thompson. Quote, it's not illegal to drink a beer or a couple of beers and drive. And that's a true statement, isn't it? Answer, yes, sir. Now, Pino's the one, excuse me, Lieutenant Thompson was the responder who took the reported statement from Mr. Pino that you all have seen. Of course, you can judge for yourself in terms of Mr. Pino's speech, whether he appeared to be impaired. A concussed brain, let's be sure we distinguish between concussion and intoxicated. A concussed brain can fail to record memories. So you can have a concussion according to Dr. Barrett, your brain is not recording memories, but then when you finally come out of the concussion, you can achieve this score of 15 in the Glasgow scale. You've got your wits about you, but your memory is not restored. But when George Pino was recounting what his memory was to Lieutenant Thompson, which is recorded, George Pino did not accurately recall the details of the crash. I went through those with you already. And you'll see if you decide to look at the videos that the first responders had to wrap George's head in a gauze. And I heard the prosecutor said, only seven staples. Is there a number of staples after which you're convinced that someone's had a concussion? Seven staples on a man's head with the teeth getting bashed in, lose chicken teeth? That's not enough, according to our prosecutor. And so Lieutenant Thompson, together with the help of some other CSI, crime scene type people, did a recreation but the boat used for the recreation was Thompson's boat, which doesn't have bow scene, which doesn't have the higher gun. And according to Lieutenant Albert, only tracked the last nine seconds of Mr. Pino's voyage. That was what they were trying to replicate, of course, with the exception of hitting the marker. And that within the last second or so, there's that buoy and then Lieutenant Thompson avoids hitting the marker. What it proves to you is that if someone is attentive, someone's paying attention, even at that speed, with that lighting, in those conditions, the marker can be avoided. If the operator is inattentive for some reason, is looking at his instrument, swiveling his head, in the time I've just said that, eight seconds have gone by, he'll hit the marker. Now, we had a little back and forth, it's not going to be a huge point, but I thought it was important again to bring the facts to you. It was high tide when this accident happened. High tide. Thompson thought high tide was at 444 in the afternoon. He was wrong by two hours. Lieutenant Albert thought, according to his report, it was at 1030 at night, so the two of them were completely at odds with each other in terms of what they thought high tide was. And I asked, and Lieutenant Albert complied, let's get the right answer for this jury. Let's go look at the right answer. Let's not have the wrong answer, even if it only means a foot or a foot and a half of difference in terms of the tide. One witness says the tide shipped three feet. They presented evidence, Mr. Albert said it was about 1.75 feet above the normal mean of the water. All evidence is clear it was high tide when this crash occurred. Ed, can we put on the screen D-delta? And you may recall I used the tape measure to establish that I tie six feet plus three feet is nine feet at the top of the marker. I believe this is what the state says is the size of the marker and if I'm the piling this is the marker. Green of course. Okay? And so you have your experience of having gone to see the boat where the gunnel of that boat would be relative to the pilot that I represent right now. And whether someone sitting on that gunnel might obscure the operator's view. Of course, should the operator, under normal circumstances, if he recognizes that his view is obscured, request that the passenger make room, of course. But that's not reckless and conscious and flagrant and gross to overlook that problem. Now, marker 13A, not 13, prosecutor said 13, let's be clear, there's a 13 and a 13A, that's for 13A. So testimony is that 13A is five feet taller. Lieutenant Adler said it was five feet taller. I brought a tape measure, three and a half inches, so. So 13A, the bottom of 13A, the bottom, would be five feet above my head. The top would be three feet tall. So 13A, that would be eight, five plus three, eight feet. That's the top top. And you can see that quite clearly in exhibit I, which is a photograph that we showed you through Lieutenant Albert, hold that right southbound, going back to Ocean Reef. There's 13A, here's 13, so it's 12, 13, 13A, 14, they're staggered over there. and if we can zoom in, you can see at this angle there's 15 obscured behind 13A. And I asked Lieutenant Albert, and again, I didn't ask him how much he gets paid, I trusted that you'd be honest, wouldn't matter how much he's getting paid, he's a law enforcement officer, I believe, I believe he would do the job, and he did. Please tell the jury if there was a point in time where those two markers, if the operator was looking through the channel where the GPS track showed, was there a point in time where marker 13A would obscure marker 15? And he said yes. And I think we have that in the Lieutenant Albert F.
[02:48:46] Speaker ?: Next one. We went too far down. There you go.
[02:49:01] Speaker 3: I'll find you in a second. We'll find you in a second for you. But the testimony was that 34 seconds to go. That's the number that he testified to, Lieutenant Albert. 34 seconds to go. Those pilings line up with the operator's view. Now let me be clear. George Pino has no memory of this, but no reliable memory of the crash. And I'm not saying to you that in fact that at that precise moment in time, the 34 seconds to go, George Pino looked up and looking down the channel, and they were a steward. although the prosecutor brought out from Albert that at 34 seconds to go, it might be that green marker 15 is not even visible because it's still too far away for the human eye to see it. Don't have a reliable memory of what happened, but nor does the state. Nor does the state. But one thing we know for certain, the tape measure doesn't lie. The GPS doesn't lie, the tape measure doesn't lie. And we know for certain that marker 15, for reasons that the Coast Guard will have to explain at some other time, why would they make a marker five feet lower than all the other ones in the channel? We're not blaming the Coast Guard. I'm waiting for the prosecutor to stand up and say the defense is blaming the Coast Guard. I'm just bringing you the facts. And that's a fact. And so when we saw the recreation of Lieutenant Thompson mimicking what the rabalowide had done, it did not give you a visual of what the operator of the boat of the rabalow was seeing in the last nine seconds. Because the camera that Lieutenant Thompson was using was in front of the windshield, not at the position where the operator stands. This exercise of crime scene investigation, you heard from Manuel Polaris. He confirmed that marker 15 is the shortest marker in the cutter bank channel. He talked about the green paint, the green transfer onto the rabalow. the accident happens at 637-19. Someone will tell me if I got that. Excuse me, 637-28. 637-28. At 636-54, so let's do our math together, that's 6 seconds before 7pm, I'm sorry, 6 seconds before 637, plus another 28 seconds, 28 plus 6 is 34, 34 seconds from this point until the illusion, 34 seconds. And that's where 13A obscures 15. If the boat is here, the operator is looking down the channel, the operator's view would be obscured. And I'm going to repeat myself one more time. don't know if that's what happened. But it's not our burden to prove to you what happened. Our burden is nothing. Our burden is to appear here in court and answer or hear. But we don't have to present any evidence. But we take the step to bring you all of the evidence for you to consider. If the operator's looking down the channel, could the operator have counted two green on the left, two red on the right, continues for 10, 15, 20 seconds. And when the operator passes marker 13A, having counted two green on the left, two red on the right, thought, I just passed the last marker, the last green marker in the cutterbank channel, veers towards the left to go to Angelfish Creek and says, hi honey, what are you doing? I'm sending a text message eight seconds later, there's a collision. Don't know, but the state has to explain to you why what happened there was more than just, as they've said so far, mere inattention. That was Palmaris. Bengal Dahl, Detective Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. He was the one, I think he was photographing, he was the drone guy. He said that the operation by Lieutenant Thompson in recreating what the Ravalo did was, quote, safe so long as you don't hit the channel marker. Well, we all agree. What George Pino was doing was safe, provided he seized the marker in time to avoid it. And let me make one other thing clear. Green marker 15 is visible. To use the word as we understand it, it's visible. It's three by three. If you're looking straight at it, you're going to see it. If it's like a pothole down the street, you can see it, but it's not registering, you could miss it, even though you could see it. When I say miss it, I mean you could not recognize or not register that it's there. And if you do that, it means you're human. It happens to us as humans. It doesn't turn us into criminals. And Bengal Dahl, he testified that the exercise of having Lieutenant Thompson replicate, copy, the path that the ribalo took, showed a steady course. No weaving, no hot doggie, no thrill seeking. A slight turn at any of the last several seconds would have avoided the marker. He was asked question, as the vessel, talking now about Lieutenant Thompson recreation of the ribalo, as the vessel was traveling in the path at that speed in these conditions, did it appear to be operating on safety? Answer, no. The only thing that would create a problem is hitting the marker. Answer, correct. This is, as I tried to explain earlier, this is the car that's not driving a 995 like a lunatic, but gets into an accident because, for example, the car forgot to hit its blinker, took a pass, changed lanes, gets hit, and people get hurt. Did they violate a rule of the road? Yeah, they didn't turn on their blinker. Did somebody get really badly hurt or worse? Yeah, but no one's going to jail for that. And now we come to the six-foot-eight lieutenant out there. And I think he gave you the answer he thought was the cause of this accident, his opinion. He fully testified that the passengers seated in the bow area could have obscured the operator's view, meaning that George Pino was driving along with a swivel looking, and that the girl sitting in the front obscured his view or perhaps distracted him and he didn't take note of what would otherwise be a visible marker and he struck the marker. And you may recall I counted down with him, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, during any of those five seconds that George Pino had taken note of the marker, he could have avoided by a quick turn of the wheel, not even that quick, just a turn. But if he didn't notice it until three, two, one, it would be too late. And if it's because the seating arrangement made his view of the marker less than ideal, it wasn't because George Pino was trying to be reckless disregard for people's safety, gross, flagrant, or anything of the sort. A few additional witnesses, the civil attorneys who testify, the prosecutor emphasizes that the insurance company's appointed lawyer for the Pino, Mr. Mescalado, following insurance company protocol, files a petition for limitation of liability to consolidate all the cases into a federal court. A lawyer doing his job, with a client urging him, I want to make sure everybody gets compensated, and the insurance company's lawyer saying, this is how we do business with the insurance company, and George Pino deferring to his lawyer. And still, everything gets resolved civilly. He holds himself accountable. He resolves the issue of compensating people that are terribly injured and worse for their injuries, and their pain, and their suffering. And yes, George Pino maintained the same memory of the event a year later that he had the day of the event. That's the nature of a confabulated memory. It's the only memory George Pino has of the event. And he shares it with his lawyer, and his lawyer shares it with opposing counsel. And the case gets resolved regardless. has nothing to do with the decision you have to make about whether George Pino is acting grossly and flagrantly and recklessly. if I could just have a second. Early on, we talked about the two crimes that George Pino is accused of and that Jill Brenner averted on. One of those crimes is manslaughter. While the elements sound alike, manslaughter has two different ways to have the state alleged and proven. One is manslaughter. Can we put up the manslaughter? I don't think.
[03:01:53] Speaker ?: Thank you. Manslaughter.
[03:01:55] Speaker 3: a, intentionally committed an act that caused the death. I submit to you that intentionally committing an act, the state hasn't proved by any stretch that he intentionally went into that marker which caused the death. It was not George's intent. Then there's the question of culpable negligence that we talked about throughout this presentation. I just want to make sure that we don't miss that there are two different theories that the state is presenting to you. Did George intentionally committed an act, an act that was not merely negligent that caused the death? Well, the prosecutor told you if he intended to hit the marker, we all agree going 47 miles an hour, George Pino intended to crash into the marker guilty. That's not what he intended. We all know that. And so the state resorts to this culpable negligence theory. Or maybe the state will say to you his intentional act was turning the steering wheel and that's the act you should look at. That he intentionally turned the steering wheel which put him on, as they'll say, a collision course. But you certainly know he did not do that with the intent of crashing into the market. Or they'll say to you it's culpably negligent that he should have known. But as we've addressed with you already, can't be the product of mere negligence. that's what happened when George Pino was negligent. He is not guilty of manslaughter. Because turning the wheel, unless you hit the marker, nothing bad happens to anyone. The speed is safe. It's steady driving. The conditions are excellent. We all know what caused the tragedy here is striking the marker. And speaking of the marker, can we show the jury exhibit J? K&K? You may recall some discussion about the GPS and how George's SIMRAT device, the GPS device, when magnified, the red line purporting to be the path of George's boat. And when it's magnified, for whatever reason, Lieutenant Albert tried to explain that the markers are on a different map than the track. It actually shows that George's boat never actually alighted with the markers when you magnify it. Now again, I am not telling you that George Pinot was driving, staring at his GPS, and thought that he was going to avoid the marker. But what you know from the track is that as George was going in the channel, which is basically southwest, at some point in time, he starts turning to the left port, because he's headed to Angelfish Creek. And we know that marker 15 is to his left, to his port side, until he actually strikes it, and he strikes it with his starboard side. So he actually shifts left. Now he could leave the channel at any time. There's no rule that he has to stay in the channel. There are no other boats in the channel. He can, typically you stay to the right, but if there's no other boats, you can take the middle of the channel. If you want to go in the shallow water, you can just make a right turn or a left turn and go to the shallow water. But I think what this tells you is that George Pino, it did not register that he had one more green marker to know. Because he's doing the veer to the left that he would have ordinarily done when it gets to marker 15. And it may just be, for the reasons we discussed before, that the state thinks he was inattentive, he should have known he had one more marker to clear before he was out of the channel. Whatever it is, it was not an intentional act to hit the marker. He did not intend to come close to the marker. He intended to take these girls back to Ocean Reef. And so now I'm going to ask you to try to get into George Pino's mind. Because ultimately our criminal laws are here to punish people who act with a level of depravity of gross and flagrant behavior. That there's some malice. And when I say malice, I don't mean like malice in the I'll just call it
[03:07:44] Speaker 2: some
[03:07:49] Speaker 3: level of I think maybe the better word is a degree of recklessness that leads you as jurors to believe that George Pino was acting consciously, intentionally against the interests of the passengers on board. And you know that when you see it. The pickup truck that puts people in the back of the pickup up in a place where no one is supposed to be seated, I suppose you could use the example of putting a bunch of kids on the hood of a car in front of the windshield and a car is not made to have people travel on the hood or in the back of the pickup truck. And if you saw someone doing 47 miles an hour with a bunch of young kids in a pickup truck on the interstate, you'd say, whoa, that guy's out of his mind. You'd know it when you see it. But when George Pino left the sandbar that day, it's for you to decide, was he taking extraordinary risk in traveling back to Ocean Reef, back to where he came from. Because failing to exercise ordinary care, if he made a mistake as the operator, that doesn't result in a criminal conviction. There may be civil liability, but not a criminal conviction. And so what was in George Pino's mind? what was in his heart? And I think it's clear because you know what the occasion was. He was there that day to celebrate a wonderful time, a beautiful time in his life, surrounded by the people he loved. Was he really trying to be a show-off? Did he prove that really? By driving his boat back to Ocean Reef, while the girl, they probably didn't even notice George Pino, as they told you, they're in their own world. It's not like he had a bunch of race car drivers who wanted to see just how fast a boat could go to an obstacle course. This was a dad with his wife by his side, his daughter seated in the bow area. Perhaps daydreaming, perhaps appreciating a beautiful moment in life. Perhaps thinking about how lucky he is, and he really think that in his heart and in his mind, he would say, ah, F it, I'll just floor it, and I'll throw caution to the wind. Does anyone really believe that? George Pino? And of course, a bad thing happened, a tragedy happened, and a lot of pain has come from this. And I know that there are a lot of people watching, people that have been affected by this.
[03:11:14] Speaker ?: You
[03:11:14] Speaker 3: heard the testimony of people who came to this court and told you the families that were affected by this. And they're watching. And they deserve sympathy. They deserve an open heart from all of us. Their lives have been changed forever. And it's a hard thing to do, to be a juror in a case where those kinds of feelings
[03:11:50] Speaker 2: have been
[03:11:52] Speaker 3: part of this trial every single day. At the same time, the reason why we have jury trials is because we count on people who have no connection to the injuries, no connection to the feelings, who can try to apply the law dispassionately even if you have sympathy. It's okay. The two things can coexist. We can all be sympathetic. We can all feel the pain that this event has caused so many people. You can feel it. We all felt it when we had to look at some of these photographs, watch some of these videos, and how they've been played over and over again, none of which has anything to do with the cause of the crash, only the injuries that followed from the crash. And the prosecutor has spent an enormous amount of time showing you just how painful this crash was. It doesn't answer the question of what was in George Pino's mind and in his heart, which bleeds for the families that have been affected by him operating that boat. No matter what your verdict is, he will have to live with that for the rest of his life. People who grew to love, people that walked in his wedding, children who spent time in his home, and so in rendering your verdict, yes, we can all be sympathetic, we can all feel the pain, the law says though that when you analyze the evidence, you need to do it dispassionately. And I submit to you, if you do it dispassionately, you'll know that there was only love and kindness in that man's heart. that never once in his mind did it occur to him,
[03:14:08] Speaker 2: there is
[03:14:12] Speaker 3: no evidence, none, that ever once in his mind he thought that he was putting anybody's life in jeopardy, not his own, not his wife's, not his daughter's, not Lucy, not Kathy's, not any of the other girls on that boat. And if anybody at that sandbar had thought that George Pinot was going to put the lives of those girls in danger, they would have said something, but they knew who George Pinot was and is. He may not be the coolest dad, but he's also not a crack. You should find him not there.
[03:15:01] Speaker 1: without giving him again. I know it's been a long day. I'm going to try to confine my remarks simply responding to some of the things that the defense team has put forward. First and foremost, I want to say this. It is not the mission of prosecutors and Mr. Borse and myself to label anyone as a criminal. My job, as I told you at the beginning of this trial in jury selection, is to present evidence. And I am organized and so am Mr. Borse. And that's why we were able to introduce into evidence more than 100 items for your consideration. Videos, photographs, bodyboard camera recordings, written documents, court pleadings, copies of receipts from the point at Ocean Reef Club. We are organized because we have a mission which is to present the evidence for you, the jury, to consider. It is not our job to ask you to make your consideration out of sympathy. And I will tell you in no uncertain terms, if Mr. Borse and I did not prove the charges of vessel homicide and or manslaughter, and you decide to find him guilty because you feel bad for this girl, you will tarnish her memory because your verdict would be a miscarriage of justice were you to convict this defendant if the evidence does not support the conviction. But likewise, I'm not coming to you asking you, oh, poor Lucy, he's a monster. No, I'm not doing that because that's not my job, that's not professional. But at the end of defense counsel's summation to you all, he was basically asking you to have sympathy for this defendant. Look, we're all human, but your verdict cannot be based on sympathy for anyone in this case. It has to be based on the facts. Counsel's saying, oh, maybe he was thinking about how lucky he is or how much he loved his wife or whatever. You know what that's called? That's called speculation. The judge is going to give you an instruction about what reasonable doubt is. It's not an imaginary forced or speculative doubt. What was in the defendant's heart and mind when he smashed into that channel marker is irrelevant. What's relevant for your consideration is what is the evidence. So let's talk about that evidence. The defendant takes one word, inattentive, and says that's what I base my whole case on. And that's just not true. And I'll tell you why. This case is based on so many failures on this defendant to operate in a safe prudent and reasonable way that any one thing by itself, well, human, it's a mistake. But when you heap mistake after mistake after mistake on him, when he was the one at the helm, when he was the one calling shots, where they go, how fast they go, then we know. First off, we've got him with 12 teenagers, 10 of whom are on the bow of that vessel. leading to at least 1,000 extra pounds, which if you remember Mr. Alvarez's testimony, remember he had that bright green boat and he showed you how the extra weight on the bow of the vessel is going to make it harder for it to operate on a plane, so you're going to be going faster, and the faster you go and the more weight you have on the boat, guess what, the harder it is to navigate it. So that's another problem that we have. This vessel becomes less responsive because of the weight and the speed. Let's take another factor into account, the fact that he had a bunch of teenagers who'd been drinking the alcohol that he provided. How does that factor into recklessness? It factors in because you now are responsible for the lives of minors, but not minors that are operating at the peak of clarity, minors that have consumed alcohol, and some of them a lot of alcohol. You're responsible for the people on your boat, so you darn well be driving carefully to get them safely back to the party you're waiting for. But what else? The fact that he'd been drinking too. That's a factor. I'm not here to prove that he was BUI. I'm here to tell you that this is yet another knock against the safe operation of a vessel. The fact that none of these girls were wearing light jackets, the fact that he wasn't wearing a kill switch, did those cause him to crash into that channel marker? No. But if you're being a safe and prudent operator of the vessel, if you are taking your responsibility seriously, then if you know that they've been out drinking, if you know you've been drinking, it's reasonably foreseeable that maybe everybody's not at their top of their game. Maybe it's likely that people could maybe not have their best judgment. So you know what you do when you're a safe and prudent operator of a vessel? You tell the kids put on light jackets and you wear a kill switch because if something were to happen and those engines keep spinning, which we know they did from that last track mark that Mr. Albert showed us. Remember the little curve? You see all those little track marks? Those engines were still going. Thank God. Thank God nobody got chopped up, but that's another factor for you to consider. Here's another one. We know from the specifications of that boat, he was going full throttle. Just because that Rovalo is rated that it could go as fast as 55 miles an hour, doesn't mean that it's safe. I think I've seen a lot of cars that have speedometers that go past 100 miles per hour. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that it's safe and prudent to do it. Imagine operating a car. A driver puts the pedal to the metal and makes that car go as fast as it can. That's what this defendant did with a boat full of kids. What else makes this reckless? What else makes this criminally negligent? He knows exactly what channel marker 15 is. First off, he'd gone past it earlier that very day to get up to the sandbar. But beyond that, you saw the track marks that were left from his boat time and time again of him going from Ocean Reef to that sandbar. He knows that that channel marker is there. But he pays no attention. What else takes us into the recklessness? There's no reason for him to have crashed through that channel marker. There was no wind, the seas were calm, and it's daylight. what else makes him reckless? What else makes him criminally negligent? He's on the wrong side of the channel. Did that in and of itself cause the crash? no, but when you think about the rules of the road say we operate on the right-hand side of the channel. If he's operating on the wrong side of the channel, especially during a Labor Day weekend when you have more vessel traffic, if there is another boat, have there actually been a phantom boat, right? Where's that boat going to go? It can't go outside the channel if it's big because it's going to run aground on the shallow waters of the same day. That's a hazard. So all of these things, not just the nine seconds, but I want to really emphasize the defense talks to you about the fact that, oh, maybe it was just a couple of seconds. No, it's not just a couple of seconds. I can't stress this enough. this is how long he was headlong toward that channel marker that he knew was there when he'd been drinking with a boat full of kids with a vessel that's overloaded with wait for that speed when he's going full throttle and on the wrong side of the channel. This is how long he is checked out. ready, set, go.
[03:24:50] Speaker ?: That's a long time.
[03:24:56] Speaker 1: Nine seconds. That's more than enough time to check your GPS screen. That's more than enough time to see if any other boats are coming around. That's more than enough time to even, oh, if you want to glance at your wife's cell phone.
[03:25:25] Speaker ?: That's
[03:25:26] Speaker 1: a long time to be heading straight into a steel pole with a gigantic day-glow green sign on the top of it that you know is there. So it's not just a few seconds of inattention. It's everything together. You have to consider all the factors that were at play. All the things that had to happen for him to wind up hitting that channel marker. And, you know, as to the defense attorney to point that, well, but if he only would have just gone a little more in this direction or this direction, he wouldn't have hit the channel marker. Okay, but let's think about this. Let's think about somebody that goes skydiving, maybe has a parachute on, splat, right on the ground. Oh gosh, if only he would have pulled the ripcord, he'd be okay. But that's the kind of argument that you're given. That doesn't make sense, and the law makes sense. The law can't be such that a person can be that inattentive, can be that checked out, zoned out, spaced out, whatever you want to call it, that you are utterly unaware of your circumstances, you are not taking into account the safety of your own passengers. The law can't abide by that. It's not about labeling anybody a criminal or a bad guy or a good guy. It's about evaluating the conduct and applying the law. And along those lines, I just want to say to give you an idea of just how much all of these different factors really count in a case like this. I have this
[03:27:13] Speaker ?: rope.
[03:27:16] Speaker 1: And if you look at rope, which ironically is a logical case, I guess, but if you look at rope, there are many little individual strands, none of which by itself would be strong enough to hold on to an anchor or that one boat can tie up to another. But what happens when you take all the little strands of the rope and you start intertwining them and you weave them together, those little strands, when you put them all together, become very strong. And that's why the evidence in this case is very strong for the fact that he was operating his vessel recklessly and that because of all those other factors which I already covered when I spoke with you initially, not just reckless, reckless is the baseline for this conduct, more than reckless, culpable negligence, manslaughter. To the extent that defense counsel says he never wanted his daughter or his wife wife or those kids to get hurt, of course. Who would say otherwise? If I had the proof that he deliberately tried to kill somebody, the charges would be different. But just because you don't have an evil heart or you don't have an evil intention, it doesn't mean that you are immune from the loss of this state. if you engage in a course of conduct that is clearly this dangerous and that clearly could have such devastating consequences, then you're properly charged with vessel homicide and manslaughter. Now, I had a feeling that we were going to hear from the defense things like there's no requirement to wear life jackets, there's no speed limit, there's no requirement for a kill switch, there's no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was impaired by alcohol, there's no proof that expired flares don't work. Of course, none of those things individually caused this crash, when again, with the rope scenario, these are just more factors to take into account, not wearing the kill switch, not having the kids in a life jacket, that you have been consuming alcohol, that you are going as fast as you can, and to say that there's no speed limit on the water, that's not true, there is. The speed limit is set by navigational rule number five, which Mr. Albert told you about. Pardon me, six. You have to go at a safe speed for the conditions. It's not the same as being on the land, obviously. We have 55 mile an hour speed limits, sometimes 60 miles an hour speed limits. Through school zones, we have 15 mile per hour speed limits. But on the water, the rules can't be rigid the way they are on land, because the water is a whole different environment. This was a flagrant battle. We're talking NBA. The defense attorney says, oh, the prosecutor, you know, she tells you all this about Lucy's injuries. And I do. But not really so much to tug at your heart strings, because I'm telling you, it would not be a lawful verdict for you to find the defending guilty just because you feel sad about Lucy or the injuries she had or you feel sad for her family. That's not what we're here for you to do. But you understanding those injuries was a necessary component of this case, because you know what? You don't go so fast, your boat doesn't smash it to the channel marker so hard, your boat doesn't wind up being basically severed from stem to stern, your boat doesn't start taking on water to the point where it flips upside down and traps a young woman who had her head bashed. You heard from Dr. Gariband, our Irish medical examiner. He talked to you about the fact that the injuries that she had are consistent with her hitting her head and then her head jerking back, which is why she had that deep bruising in the back part of her neck. And then that could cause her to become unconscious. And her now being trapped under that boat, which like I said earlier, basically became her grave site, her being trapped is what caused her to die. So that's why you needed to understand those injuries, because you know what? You slow down, your boat doesn't hit so hard. Your passengers don't get cocked in the head. to the point where they are rendered unconscious. You don't wind up unconscious. If you just slow down, operate your vessel safely. He didn't want to do that that way. He clearly knew how to. People trusted him. People trusted that he would take their children out to that sandbar and be safe. So he knew how to operate safely. He simply chose not to. The defense attorney talked about alcohol. Oh, everybody was drinking. Okay, well, first off, just because everybody's doing it, A, does it make it right? and B, the only people who testified from the vote about whether or not the defendant looked impaired were themselves drinking alcohol. we had the defendant's wife takes the stand and, you know, she acknowledged, yeah, she was drinking Chambord and Prosecco from one of those Yeti tumblers. She says, yes, I was drinking, but you know what was kind of funny is that in court, she said, one or two drinks. But in her interrogatory, if you remember when I read that to you, and you'll be able to look at it for yourself, in her interrogatory, she said she had two drinks. How come she all of a sudden now, oh, I only had one or two? But on her interrogatory, she had two. Maybe one drink here or there, but come on. Prosecco and Chambord. She remembered, but she wanted to undercut how much alcohol she had consumed. So we think that this woman is in a state to really make a good judgment about whether or not her husband should be highlighting that vote. Do we think that Cammy, with the ten alcoholic drinks, in her system is a good judge of that? Caro had been drinking. All these girls have been drinking. They were not the ones to be in a position to make an assessment if he's capable of operating vote. They're there as kids to have fun at a birthday party. Don't divest your own responsibility onto underage kids that you gave alcohol to. That's what the defense has tried to do regarding that alcohol. It's not a DUI case, but the alcohol can't be ignored. Here's the hatch. You all saw this vote. Here's what it looked like when the police opened it up. And then the police lined up a lot of those alcohol containers that they found from inside. Am I saying that this defendant drank all of them? No. Can I say that the girls drank all of this alcohol? No. But this photograph, States 109 in Evidence, tells a story about how prevalent alcohol use was on that afternoon. And because it was so prevalent, he had a duty to be careful. Not just be beyond negligence, but what he did was so far beyond pale. It does cross into recklessness and it does cross into criminal negligence. At least if the defendant was maybe buzzed or impaired by alcohol, at least there would be some explanation for why he crashed into that channel marker that's so clearly visible. That's too much to drink. At least there's an explanation. You could understand why. Not that you think that it's a good thing, but it's understandable. But let's suppose he did not feel any effects of alcohol whatsoever. Does that then not make him even more reckless and more culpably negligent? Because then what the heck are you doing, buddy? Why do you not see that which is right in front of you? You could almost understand it. Because alcohol, again, still has the non-fulbring. But to crash into it if you really were stone-cold sober, that's almost worse.
[03:37:21] Speaker 3: Projection, burden, shifting.
[03:37:34] Speaker 1: The navigational rules are the warning to all voters. Violating navigational rules all by themselves will not land you in a case like this. But when you violate so many navigational rules, you're on the wrong side of the channel, going too fast. Nobody says that you have to have somebody serving as a lookout, but man, if you don't have anybody serving as a lookout, you'd better be looking out yourself. And he didn't do that. That's like so fundamental. The navigational rules of taking steps to avoid the risk of a collision. Him traveling on that wrong side of the channel, the channel marker 15, clearly visible to him, he didn't even abide by that rule, and then of course the rule number eight, avoid a collision. He had plenty of time to avoid that collision, he didn't. The defense attorney said to you that it's not fair to his client to say, oh, you shouldn't have had all those girls seated in those seats on the bow of the boat. You know what wasn't fair? It wasn't fair to Lucy and those other girls to operate that boat that fast with that many girls there. Sure, they could sit there, but if you've got that many kids sitting up at the front of your boat, slow down. Don't tell me that's not fair to him. It wasn't fair to any of those girls, all of whose lives he and me. Thank you.
[03:39:53] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[03:40:23] Speaker 1: This is footage from a drone that did in fact follow a vessel that is following the same path that this defendant operated. Thank you. Here you can see channel marker 14. Channel marker 14, channel marker 15. This is the boat that Detective Dow and his partner with Sergeant Kopp were on operating the drone. The drone is following the FWC vessel that's trying to recreate it as close as possible the path that this defendant took on that day. Closer and closer to number 15. Closer and closer. And it's only because Lieutenant Thompson is a damn good pilot of a vessel that he did not collide with that channel marker. And so to the point where the defense attorney said, oh, if somebody was on a drone and watching Mr. Pino operating his vessel, would they want to stop him and say, what are you doing? Yes! Of course they would because they'd say, what are you doing? why are you heading right to that channel marker? The drone tells you.
[03:42:51] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[03:43:21] Speaker 1: Here we are, right by channel marker 15. Here comes the FWC vest. Look at that course. Anyone who saw that vessel coming from that distance would say, What are you doing? Are you crazy? Why are you risking your life and the lives of these kids? How can you do that? So let's talk a little bit about these injuries that the defendant had. It's funny how he's just fine to crawl up onto David Rodriguez's boat when he's so damaged that FWC... Oh, wait, no. FWC didn't life flight him away. They didn't take him in a helicopter way. They had fast boats that could get him to the mainland. They had the means to take him if he was seriously injured like they did for other passengers. Not him. He was treated. You have body more camera footage from Lieutenant Thompson on the alley at Hugh Harbour. You'll see that he's got his head bandaged. Yeah, his head's glued. And, yeah, you've got to seal the wound. Stitches don't make a lot of sense for heads, so they need staples. But he needed staples, whether it's three, seven. But the only medical care that he told Dr. Barrett that he had was therapy and some psych meds. And I don't take anything away from somebody seeking mental health care if they've been through a difficult scenario. But that is not the same as somebody that has a head injury so bad that somehow it causes them to create false memories without the intent to deceive. And then when we think about that evidence, false memories without the intent to deceive, let's go back again one more time. And the defense is, oh, like, I'm some kind of horrible person because I have the audacity to challenge what a medical doctor says in this courtroom. I challenged her because the testimony that she gave is not credible, but you're the judges of who's credible. But she literally took the stand and she said she based her finding that he had amnesia just on these four things. That he didn't remember who sat behind him, that he said his engines were 225 horsepower, that he couldn't remember exactly what happened post-impact, and that at first he said it was Nazi, then he said it was Lucy. That's it? Did he get paid 30 grand for that? She didn't even say that he did confabulate, right? She just said it could have happened. But again, reasonable doubt is not a speculative doubt. What evidence do you have that this is really signs of amnesia? First off, we already talked about the fact that even she testified, oh, whether or not he could remember exactly who was behind him. She's like, well, that makes sense that he would not remember who was behind him. She said, yeah, you know, after a traumatic event, maybe you don't remember exactly what happened. We already talked about the fact that it would make sense if maybe he was confused about which girl he saved initially, because he wasn't the one that brought that child to the rescue boat. He just ducked under his boat after being told to do so and recovered the body, but then passed it off to someone else. And I don't mean to refer to Lucy as an enemy, but that's what he did. So the one thing that we're left with, the reason why we believe that this defendant gave that whole story about a phantom boat is because he thought that he might have engines of only, what, 225 horsepower? That's not reasonable. I'm not here to bully anybody, but I'm also not here to allow you to not think about whether or not the expert witness that's called is giving you testimony that you should feel comfortable relying on. The witnesses that I brought to you, trust me, I'm not going over all of them, but, you know, I think it's worth kind of looking at in totality. Look at the officers who were called. Bobby Bruto, Sergeant Delgado, Ben Dowd, the drone operator, Detective John Dalton, who's both been a Marine Patrol officer and a vessel homicide, or excuse me, a vehicular homicide or a traffic homicide in Vesevere. You were from Lieutenant Benares and Lieutenant Thompson. Did any single one of them get caught up in some kind of, sense that what they were saying to you, they didn't know what they were talking about? That they had some ulterior motive behind doing this? How about the passengers? Cammy, Harrow, Claudia, Natalia. They all come here and say, we were there for a good time. We've known the Pinos for a long time. We felt like we were safe, but, you know,
[03:49:17] Speaker 2: jeez, most of these girls are sitting facing backwards.
[03:49:21] Speaker 1: They have the realization to know whether or not George Pino's operating his boat safely. What about the Good Samaritans that you heard from? Hilary Candela, who knows everybody, and Walt. Called Cotty Fleet's dad to say, hey, I'm out here on the water. I think there's been an accident. Hamlet Rodriguez, who takes Lucy's body and gets it to the Good Samaritan vessel. David Rodriguez, a little bit of a, maybe a little bit of a character, because, you know, I don't know a lot of people who come across a man that's stranded with his boat and take time to photograph it, but he did. Okay. You know, I thought it was interesting that the defense showed you that six-second video that he had of the defendant. But I was like, oh, you got a picture of him, too? Well, come on down here. Let's show that picture to the jurors. And I think that when we zoomed in, you could see the defendant not saving anybody, just hanging on to his boat. You heard from a couple of doctors, Dr. Gariband, the medical examiner, and you heard from Dr. Barrett. I'll let you judge who's credible. We heard from some lawyers, Brent Reitman, who was one of the attorneys that represented the Bleak family in their lawsuit. Didn't ask him a whole lot. Just wanted to make sure he understood what interrogatories were. The defense, I called Mr. Nescalato just to confirm, yes, this is a normal part of the discovery process in a civil case. That was it. I just had him read the interrogatories. But, you know, when the defense called him back, he starts talking about how Mr. Pino wanted to make everybody whole and all this other stuff. Who cares, right? But it did become relevant that he did try to limit his liability once he makes a statement like that. It did become relevant that he tried to get counts of the lawsuit dismissed. He made it relevant, not me. All I wanted was the interrogatories to come in. But at least he did admit that in answering an interrogatory, it's perfectly fine to say, I don't know. I didn't see the crash. Does Azealia Pino do that? Talk about Mr. Alvair. You know, knows his stuff down cold. Not impeached with a single thing. His expertise in GPS data extraction, interpretation, unchallenged. That GPS data that you got is irrefuted. You talk about Andy Fernandez. He didn't understand at the beginning of this trial and as the very last witness, who despite having lost his firstborn child, kept it together and answered questions. Can you imagine cross-examining that man and, like, trying to get an oops-gotcha because, oh, you weren't planning on going there? Well, don't you remember that client sent a text to you about meeting up at the sandbar a week before? Yeah, and at that time, I thought maybe I would. But on that day, I was tired from playing golf and I didn't really need to go all the way out to the sandbar and then come all the way back because I had my plans to be with my dad. That's the gotcha of the father who lost his 17-year-old child because of the actions of a man that had been his friend? Rudy Queen took the stand. You know, the injuries to his daughter are not really the issue here, but to the extent that something was made by Mr. Mescalado, the defendant's former lawyer, about, oh, the Queeds didn't settle, you deserve to know at least that she's not the same now as she was before this crash.
[03:53:29] Speaker 2: All right, councillor, so... Thank you, gentlemen.
[03:53:31] Speaker ?: Thank you. Last two points I want to make.
[03:53:58] Speaker 1: The defense in this case had no burden of proof. The burden of proof fell sorely on Mr. Borst and me. Throughout this trial, we've presented you with what I would submit are very compelling witnesses. We've presented you scientific facts, data that would substantiate a guilty burden for both vessel homicide, for being reckless, as well as for manslaughter. And so when you go back to the jury room, I'm going to suggest, but it's totally up to you, that you may wish to first look at count two of the information, vessel homicide, and that you can make a finding that because the defendant was reckless, even if nobody else was on his boat but his wife, just the direction of travel put him on a collision course, that the verdict would certainly be guilty. But then I would suggest that it's your call today, that you then consider all these other factors that were at leg on that day. These factors didn't have to be there for a vessel homicide conviction, but because they are there, I'm also asking you to return a verdict of guilty as to the manslaughter charge because he did do an intentional act by deciding how fast to go and what direction to travel, and that caused Lucy's death. And because the way that he operated that vessel was culpably negligent. And the very last thing I want to say to you is not me speaking to you, it's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:56:18] Speaker ?: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. You watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:56:50] Speaker 1: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:56:52] Speaker ?: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:56:57] Speaker 2: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:56:59] Speaker ?: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:57:01] Speaker 2: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:57:03] Speaker ?: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:57:13] Speaker 1: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.
[03:57:25] Speaker ?: It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case. It's you watching what happened in this case.