MIAMI — Doral real estate broker George Pino declined to testify Wednesday afternoon during his trial, where he is facing two felony charges over a Biscayne Bay boat crash that killed a 17-year-old girl.

“I do not wish to testify,” Pino told Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.

Shortly after Pino turned down the chance to testify, the defense rested its case. The jury is expected to return to court on Monday for closing statements.

Pino, 54, is on trial on charges of manslaughter and vessel homicide in the Sept. 4, 2022, boat crash in Biscayne Bay. Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez, 17, was killed, and Katerina “Katy” Puig, now 21, another passenger, was left with physical and neurological disabilities. Pino was piloting the boat.

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

After the defense rested, prosecutors called Andres Fernandez, Lucy’s father, and Puig’s father Rudy Puig to the stand as rebuttal witnesses.

Katy Puig’s father testifies

In brief testimony, Rudy Puig said his daughter was a healthy teenager before the boat crash. In fact, the Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior was captain of her soccer team and a likely Division 1 recruit.

But she was found unconscious in the water and had to undergo a three-hour surgery that night to remove part of her skull and a blood clot that was preventing blood flow to the brain. Jurors, however, did not hear details of the extent of Puig’s injuries.

Nearly four years after the crash, Puig, now 21, uses a wheelchair and requires around-the-clock medical care, which has taken a significant financial toll, Rudy Puig testified.

As Rudy Puig walked out of the courtroom, he sniffled and dabbed his eyes. He was wearing on his arm white-and-blue rubber wristbands that read “Katy strong.” Minutes later, prosecutors again called Fernandez, Lucy’s father, who described how he was close to Pino’s wife Cecilia Pino when they were growing up. He said he attended the Pinos’ wedding but added their families drifted apart over the years.

On the day of the crash, Fernandez said he only went to the sandbar because Lucy asked him to stop by before Fernandez headed to watch Florida State’s opening football game with his father that evening.

Pino may have false memories: doctor

Also on Wednesday, Dr. Diana Barratt, a Boca Raton neurologist, testified she evaluated Pino and determined he had a traumatic brain injury, which may have led him to have false memories associated with the crash. Barratt, a concierge physician specializing in neurology and sleep medicine, walked the jury through the diagnostic criteria considered for traumatic brain injuries.

Barratt said she reviewed the crash’s investigative report, Pino’s emergency medical records and witness statements to determine whether Pino had a brain injury. Pino, she said, showed signs of traumatic brain injury: He was unconscious and had amnesia immediately following the crash.

Pino slammed into a steel channel marker in the bay going 47 mph, according to his boat’s GPS data. The crash happened around 6 p.m. on Sunday of the Labor Day weekend.

Following the crash, Pino made statements to first responders that indicated he had suffered from amnesia, including calling Lucy by another girl’s name, Barrett said. False memories, she added, are not unusual in a person with amnesia because they are struggling with their memory.

“They’re filling in the gaps with a false memory without the intention of deceiving people,” Barratt said.

The defense is using Barratt’s testimony to counter prosecutors’ contention that Pino lied about the cause of the crash to avoid accountability. Pino told investigators the wake of another boat coming toward him in the channel caused him to lose control of his 29-foot Robalo. He and his wife repeated those claims in a court filing in a civil suit brought by the Puig family.

No witness, including the passengers on Pino’s boat or in other boats behind him, saw what prosecutor Laura Adams has called the “phantom boat.”

Adams peppered Barratt with questions about several comments Pino made to lead investigator Lt. William Thompson of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission after the crash. His statements recounted what happened accurately:

At the time of the crash, the boat was heading toward the last marker in the channel. Pino said he was an experienced boater and had owned the Robalo since early 2020. He told the investigator that he, his wife and the girls were on the water celebrating his daughter’s birthday. And he also said that after the crash, his wife was on another boat with one of the teens.

Adams then questioned Barratt about how Pino’s brain scan was normal and didn’t show signs of trauma. The doctor said she administered a test to evaluate Pino’s memory but said did not ask him what he remembered about the crash.

The prosecutor also pointed out that Barratt was consulted three years after the crash and was paid by the defense almost $30,000 for her expertise.

Pino stared down Adams after cross-examination — and Adams stared back at him.

While on the witness stand Tuesday, Pino’s wife, Cecilia, was grilled about the statement she made in the civil-suit filing. In the court document, which was signed under penalty of perjury, Cecilia Pino said her husband crashed because the wake of another boat caused him to lose control. She then testified her attorney Andrew Mescolotto wrote the response.

Mescolotto said Wednesday that he and an associate penned the response and that the Pinos adopted the statements when they signed the documents. The attorney said he obtained that information from Pino and other sources related to the investigation.

George Pino’s attorneys began presenting their case on Tuesday, calling to the stand his wife and two of the girls who were on the boat. Claudia Portocarrero and Natalia Reed, now both 21, recounted what they witnessed after the crash, saying the ride began like countless others they had been on as frequent boaters.

Both girls testified Tuesday that they had been drinking that day and felt buzzed. At the time of the crash, Portocarrero and Reed were 17, under the state drinking age of 21.

The day after the crash, FWC officers pulled the boat from the bay, and it contained 61 empty and partially empty booze bottles and cans. All the girls on the boat were underage. Pino has said the bottles and cans stemmed from the trash of six boats tied up at the sandbar.

Pino’s wife testified that she did not see whether her husband had been drinking while they were out on the sandbar. Cecilia Pino said she did not witness how the crash occurred because she was trying to send videos to the girls’ mothers at the time.

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(Miami Herald staff writer Kairi Lowery contributed to this report.)

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