When prominent developer Sergio Pino sought what the FBI called “murder crews” to kill his wife, he allegedly did not look far for the men now accused of assembling them.
One of those men, Bayron Bennett, worked serving food and beverages on the Century Star, the Pinos’ yacht, the FBI alleges. The other, convicted felon Fausto Villar, is married to the owner of the company Pino contracted to reroof his Cocoplum home, according to the criminal complaint against Villar and an NBC6 Investigation.
A roofing project was underway Tuesday when an FBI SWAT team moved in to arrest Pino on murder-for-hire charges. Rather than be taken into custody, the 67-year-old leader of Century Homebuilders group fatally shot himself in his upstairs bedroom.
It was the end of his role in the twisted tale of the murder-for-hire scheme laid out by the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office in criminal complaints naming nine men.
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Pino's motive and involvement
While running a homebuilding and commercial development empire, Pino was also arranging for two groups of criminals to kill his wife before their divorce could be finalized, the federal affidavits state.
The motive, one of those charged told the FBI, was that Tatiana Pino would not accept his $20 million to end a 32-year marriage that had amassed by 2022 a net worth that divorce court records variously put at $153 million or $359 million.
As federal law enforcement sees it, all roads in the investigation led to Pino.
“In addition to Sergio Pino's alleged role at the head of this scheme,” said FBI Miami Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri, “our evidence has shown he hired and gave orders to murder crews. There were at least two separate crews involved.”
Even before she filed for divorce in April 2022, the FBI alleges Pino was trying to poison his wife with fentanyl.
“First, he tried to poison her over a period of time,” said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe. “When that failed, he put out a contract on her head on two separate occasions, hiring separate groups of hit men to do the job.”
The men in the murder crews and the plots
The criminal complaints describe a tangled web of men previously convicted of felonies including kidnapping, attempted murder, armed robbery, drug dealing and other crimes. And they were assembled by two middlemen who had direct ties to the Pinos’ $8 million waterfront home, Lapointe said.
“The individuals that were actually leading those crews, they all had some sort of special relationship with Mr. Pino,” he said.
The first crew involved four men arrested in March: Bennett, Michael Dulfo, Jerren Howard and Edner Etienne. They are not currently charged with murder, but rather arson--after cars were set afire outside Tatiana Pino’s sister’s house--and stalking. That also includes the incident in August 2023, when Tatiana Pino's car was rammed as she returned home from "a very important divorce court hearing," her attorney, Raymon Rafool, said.
“A hearing that had been set for a very long time so the timing was known, the date was known, everything was known,” Rafool said, including Tatiana’s whereabouts.
Tatiana Pino recognized Bennett during FBI questioning as a worker on the yacht. On Tuesday, an FBI sniper boarded the vessel to keep an eye on the back of the house as SWAT moved in.
According to the federal complaint, Fausto Villar is the man Sergio Pino engaged to lead the second crew.
NBC6 investigates revealed a connection between Villar and Pino. In May of this year, Pino filed a notice of commencement with the county clerk naming the contractor doing re-roofing of the house as Evalution Roofing LLC.
That company is owned by Villar's wife.
Villar is now charged with murder-for-hire, along with Avery Bivins, with whom Villar spent time in state prison until 2016.
Villar, 42, was serving seven years for an armed robbery he pulled off with his cousin, a Miami-Dade police officer, in 2010. They helped a bookie recover $130,000 in cash winnings from a man they followed from the bookie’s offices and, using the cousin’s police car, pulled over and “confiscated” the cash.
Bivins, 34, was doing 15 years for attempted murder and armed robbery.
Bivins told the FBI that Villar recruited him to assemble what they called the second murder crew to eliminate Tatiana Pino for $300,000.
That crew allegedly included Diori Barnard, whose five-year burglary sentence also overlapped with Bivins and Villar; armed robber Clementa Johnson; and Vernon Green, previously convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder.
It was Green, criminal complaints say, who played a key role on June 23–one day before Pino’s deadline to commit the murder.
That afternoon, members of the second crew followed Tatiana Pino once again to her home and, as she pulled into the driveway, Green emerged from a truck armed and ran up to her car, gun in hand, the complaint states.
She sounded her car horn, hurriedly drove into a rear parking area and managed to run into the house.
Hearing the racket, her adult daughter emerged. Green held his gun inches from her head and ordered her back into the house, the complaint states. Green then allegedly fled back into the truck, which sped away.
So far, public records show only Villar and Bivins face murder-for-hire charges, while others are charged with various crimes, including arson and stalking conspiracy.
But, Lapointe noted Tuesday, “This is an ongoing investigation as it relates to what charges have been submitted and what charges may be submitted later.”
Authorities were 'disturbed at the level of brazenness'
The only man to escape charges was Sergio Pino. The chief federal prosecutor said he was relentless and knew authorities were onto him.
“That didn't bother him at all," Lapointe said. “In fact, law enforcement, to the extent we can discuss this at all, felt somewhat disturbed at the level of brazenness that he had.”
Last week, Rafool, Tatiana Pino’s divorce attorney, said he saw Pino’s arrogance up close.
“So sometimes money or power or any other type of influence aspects will turn people even against those that they loved at one time or love,” he said.
NBC6 reached out to every attorney we could find for the nine men charged. They’ve either declined comment or not responded. All who have had an opportunity have pleaded not guilty.
Sam Rabin, Sergio Pino’s criminal attorney, said they were confident they could have successfully defended the charges that were about to be filed against him.
