Exactly nine months after prominent South Florida developer Sergio Pino killed himself — rather than face charges of hiring hitmen to kill his wife who sued for divorce — two of his charged co-conspirators Wednesday admitted their roles in the plot.
Exactly nine months after prominent South Florida developer Sergio Pino killed himself - rather than face charges of hiring hitmen to kill his wife who sued for divorce - two of his charged co-conspirators admitted their roles in the plot on Wednesday.
In all, nine men are accused of trying to stalk, intimidate or in some cases kill Tatiana Pino after one of them said Sergio Pino told him Tatiana refused a $20 million settlement offer in their contentious divorce case.
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Probate court records estimate the value of assets in his estate and what were their joint holdings total at least an estimated $165 million.
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While probate lawyers fight over how much Tatiana deserves from the estate and trusts Sergio created or amended in the last months or days of his life, criminal defense attorneys and their clients are weighing whether to change their not guilty pleas, as well.
Pleading guilty Wednesday were Avery Bivins, 37, and Michael Dulfo, 43: Bivins to conspiracy to commit murder for hire, stalking and a firearms charge; Dulfo to stalking and two arson-related charges.
Both agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of any others who do not also plead guilty in coming weeks.
Bivins, in fact, has already cooperated with the FBI, making a controlled video call to his former prison mate, Fausto Villar, on July 15. In a recording of that call played in court, Villar discusses how their benefactor – not named in the call but identified in FBI criminal complaint as Sergio Pino – was getting nervous after hearing some of the co-conspirators had been arrested.
With that evidence in hand, FBI SWAT teams moved in the next morning to arrest Villar and the 67-year-old Pino, who shot himself in the head as they moved in.
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The FBI alleges Sergio enlisted two “murder crews” to intimidate or kill Tatiana, who filed for divorce in 2022 and had rejected what Villar said was a $20 million settlement.
The court-appointed curator of Sergio Pino’s estate estimated in November it had more than $115 million in assets. And probate court records reveal Tatiana, 56, has already taken control of half of the Pinos’ $87.6 million business, Century Homebuilder’s Group, and is asking a judge to declare she owns the other half as well. In December, she sold the family’s waterfront Cocoplum mansion for $10.1 million.
One of the crews Pino allegedly directed was headed by Villar, a convicted armed robber and roofer on the Pinos’ home, who had told Bivins Sergio was willing to pay up to $300,000 for a successful hit on Tatiana’s life, the FBI alleged.
Dulfo was allegedly part of the other, earlier crew, assembled by Bayron Bennett, a man who worked on the Pinos’ yacht and who allegedly attempted to acquire and use poisons, including fentanyl, to kill Tatiana, according to the federal indictment.
Dulfo is accused of seeking to intimidate Tatiana by participating in several crimes: the setting of fires to her sister’s cars and ramming of a rented Home Depot truck into the side of her car as she returned to her Pinecrest home from a divorce court hearing in August 2023.
But it was the Villar crew that came closest to killing her when in June 2024 she was confronted in that same driveway by an armed gunman. But he never got a shot off as she drove into her backyard, scraping a tree and fence, while honking her horn before she was able to run into the house.
Alerted by the commotion, one of the Pinos’ daughters emerged to find a gun pointed inches from her face, the federal charging documents stated. The alleged gunman, Vernon Green, told her to get back into the house, which she did, and then fled.
The length of sentences in the federal system depends heavily on the nature of the crime and the defendant’s prior record.
Villar, Bennet, Bivins, Green (previously convicted of attempted murder and armed robbery) and two other men on what the feds allege was the Villar crew face up to life in prison for murder-for-hire conspiracy.
Dulfo, a convicted burglar and violent career criminal, and two other men on the crew Bennett allegedly assembled face up to 10 years for stalking and 20 years each for several counts of arson and related crimes.
