FWC bodycam video from aftermath of fatal 2022 boat crash deleted before July trial of Miami real estate broker

By Jordan Kissane, Matthew Garcia

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    MIAMI (WSVN) — Critical body camera video that showed officers responding to a boat crash that killed a 17-year-old teen and injured 10 others was deleted just two months before the trial for the alleged driver of the vessel.

The boat crashed into a pole near Boca Chita in 2022. Luciana Fernandez was among those hurt in the crash and later died from her injuries.

Prominent Miami real estate broker George Pino was charged in 2024, accused of being at the helm of his 29-foot Robalo boat when it collided with a channel marker.

Now, the police-worn body camera that recorded an officer in close contact with Pino following the crash, who was ordered by his supervisor to smell Pino for alcohol intoxication, has been erased.

“It’s completely unacceptable when it comes to a man who has killed a young girl,” said Brent Fannin with the grassroots coalition Wild Florida Alliance.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released a statement claiming the recording was categorized correctly by officers, who “were not the lead officers on the case, nor were they addressing any violations directly.”

The FWC also clarified that officers did not delete the footage, but that they followed the current policy, and the system’s automatic process deleted it after a period of time had passed.

The statement reads in part:

“In this case, the officers categorized their videos as incidental, which, under the existing policy, was an appropriate classification. They were not the lead officers on the case, nor were they addressing any violations directly. In addition, the officers did not delete their BWC videos; this is a process within the system that is automatic once the retention period for the specific category of video has been met.”

The statement goes on to say that while the officers categorized the video correctly, the policy for how assisting officers should categorize body camera footage is unclear, and steps have been taken to review it.

Fannin led the charge against the 2020 confirmation of Rodney Barreto, the current chairman of the FWC. He told 7News this is just one of many issues at the hands of Barreto’s team.

“The investigation should’ve been pretty straightforward, but it wasn’t. The investigation was completely botched,” Fannin said. “When it first came out that this was a major issue, Rodney Barreto issued a statement basically just saying ‘this was a human error, these things happen,’ was his excuse. He didn’t even really give a good excuse, that was it.”

An attorney for Fernandez’s family released a statement:

“The Fernandez Family is not prepared to make a statement at this time because of the pending criminal litigation and because they need time to process what they have now just learned.”

Fernandez’s family has lobbied for stricter boating laws, seeing some success with the passage of “Lucy’s Law.”

Pino reportedly denied any alcohol screening the night of the crash. Late Friday afternoon, his lead defense attorney, Howard Srebnick, released a statement that reads in part:

“We too are disturbed by the deletion of the body-worn camera footage of the officers referenced in the May 9, 2025 Miami Herald story. Of particular concern is the deleted footage of FWC Officer Julian Gazzola, who claimed at his March 24, 2025 deposition, for the first time in more than two years since the accident, that he observed Mr. Pino to have bloodshot eyes, a scent of an alcoholic beverage, and that Gazzola reported these observations to FWC Officers Kieth Hernandez and the lead investigator, William Thompson. Gazzola’s official report, written two weeks after the accident, makes no mention of any of these alleged observations, and Officer Hernandez recently testified that Officer Gazzola never reported any of his alleged observations to him either.”

Pino was charged with felony vessel homicide, and his trial is set for July.

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