372: Millionaire Husband Tries To Kill His Wife Multiple Times | The Case of Sergio and Tatiana Pino

A wealthy Miami developer, a waterfront mansion, and FBI agents closing in. When Sergio Pino was found dead just moments before his arrest for allegedly plotting his wife’s murder, the fallout was immediate and explosive. What followed was a chilling mix of fear, power, and greed as his widow, Tatiana Pino, was thrust into the center of a legal war over a massive real estate empire, shadowy last-minute moves, and allegations so dark they raised questions about what was really happening behind closed doors…. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources Bisnow | CiberCuba | Daily Mail | FIU Business | Law.com | Miami Herald | Miami New Times | NBC 6 South Florida | NBC Miami | New York Post | People.com | Southern District of Florida US Attorney’s Office | Tampa Bay Times | The Real Deal | The Superslice | The Times | Walla Walla Union-Bulletin | WPLG Local 10••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them, plus time management tools. And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. Participate at McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper 7-Up Inc.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  You know, Kevin, sometimes I feel like computers are the only thing around here that are getting smarter.

• 0:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, my model hasn't had enough data in a while.

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  But that changes now. We think that we can smarten these listeners up about all things related to this crazy new future.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your guide to the AI future.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Twice a week, we're going to help you get smarter about AI so you know what's real, what's hype, and what you should probably install on your phone.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:27Speaker 04

  From a picture-perfect life in southern Florida to a messy divorce years in the making.

• 1:35Speaker 05

  There's a gun, there's a gun with a gun. What do you mean, there's a guy with a gun?

• 1:39Speaker 06

  As a gunman approached to finish with the FBI alleges was to be a $300,000 contract on Tatiana's life. Those who could love passionately could hate passionately. Divorces may come with a heightened level of emotion. Now, nine men in total have been charged with various crimes related to this investigation.

• 2:00Speaker 07

  We spoke to so many people today who knew him, who loved him, who respected him, and not one of them say they saw this ever coming.

• 2:12Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Insanity.

• 2:35Annie Elise?

  Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly with me, Annie Elise. I am coming to you in my tired era today, or not tired, like comfy era. I don't know. For some reason, I woke up this morning and I chose violence against myself. I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna do anything like to get really ready today. I'm just feeling tired. I'm feeling like, I feel like my skin is clear for once, like I'm not feeling dry or broken out. And I was like, let me just throw lotion on, no makeup. I don't feel like doing my hair. Let me throw it up in a bun. And that's where we're at. That's all we could do today. And that is okay, okay? It's okay to be lazy sometimes and to just not want to have it all

• 3:18Annie Elise?

  together. So that's where I'm at today. But what I like about that is that I feel like I'm just super comfy talking with you guys. And this case is a doozy that we are going to talk about today. I hate the word doozy. I really feel like I need to come up with a different word. What could it be? I don't know. Maybe I do need that thesaurus after all. I can't even say that word. Anyway, okay. So this is a wild one, and it's kind of going to be a lot for us to get through. You're gonna be with me for a minute. So I hope you're ready for like, all the twists and the turns and the roller coaster of it all. But I want you to imagine being married to somebody for 30 years, okay? You think that they love you. You think that they have your best interest at heart. You think that you can trust them

• 4:01Annie Elise?

  with everything. But then you learn they're cheating on you. And not only that, even worse, you learn that they're actively trying to murder you. So this case involves all things that make a true crime case really stand out. I mean, tons and tons of wealth, millions of dollars, an affair, a professional hitman. I mean, you name it, this case has got it. So we have got a lot to talk about. Let's all start with one of the main people at the forefront of this case, and that is Sergio Pino. Sergio was born in Havana, Cuba in 1956. And he came to the United States with his family when he was just 12 years old. He ended up getting a part-time job where he worked at the same laundromat as his mom and

• 4:45Annie Elise?

  his specialty was cleaning the hotel welcome mats. That's kind of what his focus was on. His mom worked at the laundromat and she was somebody who ironed all of the clothing. But that's not what he wanted to do with his whole life. He wanted to do more. He itched and yearned for more and he just had a lot of ambitions. So when Sergio was 20 years old, he convinced his father to loan him $6,000. Now, keep in mind, that was $6,000 back in 1977, which was worth a whole lot more back then than $6,000 would be today with inflation. Which let's actually just see what that would be because I'm gonna do, okay. Siri, what would $6,000 in 1977 be worth today?

• 5:27Speaker 09

  I found this on the web.

• 5:29Annie Elise?

  Oh, wow. Okay, $30,000. Okay, go away, Siri. Thank you, Siri. How do I get out of you? Ah, okay, so $30,000. That's a big chunk of change, right? So that would be a lot for any family in context, but especially for immigrants who are working in a laundromat and just trying to make ends meet. It's a huge amount of money, but still Sergio believed that he had what it took to make it big. And I really do think this also illustrates just how much his dad believed in him. Because his dad agreed to it. He just handed him over the cash. So anyway, Sergio ended up using that money to open a small plumbing supply business, which he called Century Plumbing. And in no time at all, it became massively successful. Sergio was right. He did know how to make it big.

• 6:14Annie Elise?

  And his father had been completely right to invest in his son. The risk paid off. Eventually, Sergio decided that he was ready to try his luck again. He wanted to show it wasn't just a fluke that he had become so successful so quickly. He knew what he was doing. He was smart. He knew that he could be successful again. So he decided to let his brother Carlos take over his plumbing business. And then Sergio decided he was going to move into the world of real estate development. Now, I don't want to make it sound like Sergio was just all about making money and that nothing else mattered and that was all he was laser focused on. It wasn't just that. He was actually also very big on giving back. He joined various different business owner associations. He also gave a lot of money to charity as well.

• 6:56Annie Elise?

  He even got appointed to serve on the Florida Department of Transportation at one time, which I know that kinda sounds pretty random, but I do think that it goes to show how trusted he was. And he kind of just became like this fixture in the community. Now, while Sergio was busy growing his business empire, a woman named Tatiana Liaris was busy growing up. And I do mean that literally because spoiler alert, Tatiana would later go on to marry Sergio, but she was 12 years younger than him. So while he was making these major, huge moves in the business world, she was literally still trying to finish high school for real. Now Tatiana was a very good kid and I mean that just by like loose definition, right?

• 7:37Annie Elise?

  Because she kept a prayer journal. She belonged to a group called the Future Homemakers of America. She was just a very straight laced, good kid. And the reason that she was in that group of the Future Homemakers of America is kind of self explanatory. She was trying to learn the skills of just that. She was trying to learn how to sew, how to cook, how to take care of a household because she really expected to get married and spend the rest of her life taking care of her husband, also taking care of the house, maybe any kids that they had together. So anyway, when she was in high school, she for the most part was single. She also focused on a job. Her parents owned a grocery store, so Tatiana would help out there, working as a cashier whenever she was done with school for the day. She would also help out there on weekends. And that's how she actually ended up meeting Sergio.

• 8:22Annie Elise?

  The store was pretty close to his office, so Sergio would stop in from time to time, running errands, picking things up, things like that. So when Tatiana was a senior and about to graduate, that's when she officially met Sergio. Now, like I said, he was older than her, so he was probably about 30 years old or so. And before long, the two of them started dating. Now, I think it's safe to say that Sergio did whatever he possibly could to really sweep Tatiana off of her feet. He was making at that point, something like a million dollars a year at the time, maybe even a little bit more. So again, count with inflation, that is like a lot of money. That's probably like two and a half million today, just doing the rough math based on, you know, the equation that we did earlier. So he was always taking Tatiana out, whining her, dining her, bringing her to fancy

• 9:07Annie Elise?

  parties. They even went on trips to the Bahamas on his yacht. Like, she was a young girl about to graduate high school and literally getting swept off her feet with this just crazy glamorous life, this older man who's taking care of her financially, everything that just felt like a dream come true. I mean, talk about a real Cinderella story, right? Tatiana had been dreaming of being a good wife and taking care of her husband's home. And then along came this literal millionaire to show her all of this glitz, this glamour, everything that she could dream of, making all of her dreams become a reality. Except Tatiana's parents were not exactly won over as much as she was. They definitely had their reservations. In part, yes, because of the age difference. I mean, that was a pretty

• 9:51Annie Elise?

  major red flag right then from the get-go. But also, they didn't approve of the fact that Sergio was divorced. See, he had already been married once, and that marriage did not work out. And think about it, back then divorce definitely wasn't as common as it is today. He also already had two kids from the previous relationship. Which, again, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with taking another shot at love, or if it doesn't work out, leaving your, you know, your partner to pursue happiness elsewhere so that you both can be happy. You can get married and divorced as many times as you want. I don't care. But I think that it's safe to say, it's hard for an 18-year-old who has no life experience to just step into that kind of world and become a stepmom. And it just didn't

• 10:36Annie Elise?

  seem like the right situation for Tatiana. Yet, she was in love. She was completely head over heels for Sergio. So she wasn't bothered by any of those things. She did fully understand where her parents were coming from, yes, their concerns. So she said that she would be careful, and she wanted to be careful and take things slow, but she really loved him. So she did honor their wishes in a way, and she took things, like I said, pretty slow. She dated Sergio for five years before ever agreeing to get married. And by this time, she was 23 years old, and he was 35 years old. So still, yes, an age gap, but not anything that is, you know, insanely alarming or wild. I mean, I guess that's subjective, right? Depending on how you look at it. For me, I-

• 11:18Annie Elise?

  I don't know. I don't really view that as like that insane, maybe. I don't know, whatever. So, right before the wedding, Sergio surprised her with a very flashy and very exciting gift. He gave her a brand new car, a white Lexus, to be specific. And so even after all this time, after five years, he was still showering her with gifts. He was still doing whatever he could do to make her feel loved and special. The actual wedding itself was pretty small. It was just kind of like this private civil service that happened on April 9th, 1992. But then, about a month later, they invited all of their friends and family over to where they could do a more traditional service inside a church, just more of a religious-type service. And then, of course, after that, came a very expensive honeymoon in New York.

• 12:02Annie Elise?

  And once they were married, once they had their wedding, their dream honeymoon, they decided, you know, this is where our life is now going to start. We need to get a house. We need to start our life together. And so they moved into a huge mansion that had seven bedrooms, which it's probably exactly what you would expect when you picture marrying a millionaire, right? You're probably moving into this like mega house, this mega super mansion. Sergio and Tatiana eventually had two daughters together. The daughters had long, dark brown hair, dark eyes, just like their mom. They grew up and went to do on very amazing things. But the key here that I want to focus on is that Sergio and Tatiana stayed together for 30 years.

• 12:43Annie Elise?

  And to all appearances, from the outside, those seemed like a very happy 30 years. Except a few people who were close to the two of them, they knew otherwise. See, beginning in 2017, rumors started flying, and everybody was talking about Sergio and the sales and marketing director in his midtown office, more specifically, a woman named Nancy Pastor. Now, according to all of the gossip, the two of them were definitely having an affair. Sergio and Nancy were sleeping together. And apparently, they were doing a very bad job keeping it a secret, because literally everyone who worked with them knew. Everybody was talking about it. And that included Tatiana. Which you can't have that many people talking about your private business without

• 13:26Annie Elise?

  eventually catching wind of the gossip yourself. So naturally, in no time at all, Tatiana was hearing all of the details, all of the gross, juicy, like overly TMI details. She knew what her husband was up to, but she decided, for whatever reason, to just ignore all of the talk. And it's not clear to me what her mindset was. Maybe she figured, you know, you can't trust things that you hear secondhand or thirdhand. Maybe she shrugged it all off as a lie that people were telling. Or maybe she did believe the rumors, and she did believe that her husband was cheating on her, but she decided to forgive him. Maybe she didn't want to blow up her whole life, her 30 years of marriage, her two children. It could have been a denial thing, where maybe she just hoped if she

• 14:09Annie Elise?

  pretended the affair wasn't going on, it would just go away on its own, or that she could live with it, she could stomach it. I mean, at the end of the day, I think we can all agree that people are complicated. Everybody responds to bad news differently. So Tatiana's first reaction was just to ignore all of the gossip, try to trust Sergio anyway. But the longer that things went on, the harder it became for her to do that. It became especially hard once Tatiana received an anonymous letter. In this letter, it said that Sergio was involved with Nancy, so by this time, it was just impossible for her to ignore. The evidence was literally right there in Tatiana's face. But still, she wanted to remain married. She wanted to work through this betrayal. So she decided to confront

• 14:52Annie Elise?

  Sergio. But she also asked him what they needed to do to make things between them good again. So they went to several different marriage counselors, they sought help from their minister. Sergio claimed he called it off with Nancy and was going to focus on the marriage with Tatiana, that he was so remorseful and that it was all a big mistake. But Tatiana was now believing otherwise, that trust had been shattered.

• 15:15Annie Elise?

  And her sister Aurora also did not trust Sergio. So Aurora was always encouraging Tatiana to be careful, to not take him back too quickly. You know, keep your eyes open, look for signs, see if the affair is still going on. Just protect yourself. And as if that wasn't bad enough, in November of 2019, things took a turn for the worse. In November of 2019, Tatiana had this good friend named Lisa Lorenzo. And every year Lisa would throw this huge, big Friendsgiving potluck. Everybody would get together, they would eat, they would bring food, they would kind of just catch up, talk, have a good time, just really enjoy each other's company. Well, that year, everybody who went to the Friendsgiving was a woman.

• 15:58Annie Elise?

  They had all left their husbands, their sons, their brothers, all the other men at home, so that they could have like a ladies' night out, a girls' night, a girls' Friendsgiving. So they sat down, started talking, started eating, drinking, just like usual. But then, people started feeling very sick, like really sick. Almost to the point where people were feeling like, okay, something is seriously wrong here. Why are all of us feeling so ill? They barely even made it through the main course before people were running to the bathroom, just like fighting nausea, getting stomach cramps, having all sorts of different terrible symptoms. And it wasn't just a little bout of food poisoning, or maybe the meat wasn't cooked through all the way. 12 people ended up needing to leave in ambulances because their reactions to whatever was going on,

• 16:43Annie Elise?

  they were so severe that they needed medical treatment immediately. And this was beyond weird, okay? I mean, first of all, because it takes a while for food poisoning to really like set in and start getting bad. I will say firsthand, I am like so susceptible to food poisoning. That's if I'm being real with myself, that's probably because I DoorDash and Postmate way too frequently. And it probably wouldn't happen if I would just like figure out how to cook. But I get food poisoning on average, probably at least once a year. And so I know the exact onset, I know how to combat it, I know what I need to do, I know I need to go and get an IV, and that's what's going to make me feel better. I need Zofran in that IV, I need to then power through some Gatorade. Like I know, it's like, and you like throw up like clockwork. It's like every 30 minutes on the minute, it's you're throwing up.

• 17:27Annie Elise?

  So it's like, but it takes a while to set in, is my point in all of that. I don't know why I just overshared, but my point is... It takes a while to set in, usually around 12 hours until you're like, oh shoot, something's wrong, I'm feeling sick. It's not like you take a bite of something and immediately the onset happens and you're just like violently ill. That's not how it works. But this is kind of how Thanksgiving played out. Everybody was like sitting, laughing, feeling great, eating, and then just like bam, all of a sudden, they were all violently ill, feeling so sick. And it was almost like this food had been deliberately poisoned, not in a food poisoning type of way, but actual poison. However, it was really hard to say for sure because the police and other officials actually ended up testing all of the food from the dinner.

• 18:11Annie Elise?

  I mean, not only had a dozen people gotten sick, yes, and that's a huge issue in and of itself, but a lot of these people were like major players, rich women, powerful women, people who owned businesses, elected government officials, I mean, major power players. So this was a major, serious problem that everybody had become so sick. So they ran the tests and they checked everything out, but they found nothing. There was no hard proof that the food had ever been tampered with, but also nothing tested positive for salmonella or any other diseases that you might actually expect in this kind of situation. What's the other one, like E. coli or something like that? So the best guess that anybody could come up with while trying to figure out what did the sickness really stem from, what was the root cause of this, was that it must have

• 18:56Annie Elise?

  happened with the Brussels sprouts. And the reason they thought that is because even though it didn't test as anything, the more Brussels sprouts that people ate, the more sicker people became. It was almost like that was the trigger. So that became the working theory, like it must have been the Brussels sprouts because every time Mary or Sally or whomever ate it, that's when they got sick. I mean, it clearly wasn't the most scientific or airtight theory out there, but it was the best that anybody could come up with. And it's also worth mentioning that Tatiana was the one who brought the Brussels sprouts to Friendsgiving. So if somebody did tamper with that dish in any way or deliberately try to poison someone, it must have happened inside Tatiana's home when she was preparing the dish.

• 19:47Annie Elise?

  All right, I feel like we need to just have an honest conversation here in the circle of trust. Can we talk about how literally everything seems to be getting more expensive? Groceries, gas, rent, you name it. And apparently, your wireless bill wants to join in on that party too. But here's the thing, it doesn't have to. Mint Mobile is making it so much easier to stop overpaying for wireless with plans starting at just 15 bucks a month. And you're not sacrificing quality either. All plans include high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and access to the nation's largest 5G network. You can also use your current phone and your current phone number. You just sign up online and you are good to go. Now, I changed carriers probably a year and a half ago at this point to Mint Mobile.

• 20:32Annie Elise?

  And when I tell you, not only was it the best decision of my life, I now have like service in places my husband doesn't even have service, but it was so easy. It took me 15 minutes, kept my phone, kept my phone number, it was the best. So for a new wireless plan starting at 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/ae. That's mintmobile.com/ae. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

• 21:09Annie Elise?

  So that all sounds pretty scary, right? I mean, you go out with your friends, you're expecting to have some innocent fun, a girls' get-together, Friendsgiving, you're bonding over wine, over food, all of those things. But now, it sounds like somebody's poisoned you? Well, after this whole Friendsgiving dinner fiasco, Tatiana started getting sick all the time. And she was a relatively healthy person. She had never had serious issues like this before. And this lasted for years of just sickness after sickness. And over the course of three years, it was one thing after another. She kept going to the hospital, she was asking for tests, she was asking for doctors to figure out what was wrong with her. Could she get a referral to a specialist? Clearly, there had to be a root cause for this. But they could never figure out what was making...

• 21:54Annie Elise?

  Making her sick. And to make things even weirder and more mysterious, it's not like her symptoms were always the same in all of these sicknesses. It definitely wasn't. And if she did have one big health problem that just went undiagnosed, you would think, okay, it's manifesting the same way. The symptoms always turn up the same, but that's not what this was. Tatiana, she would have breathing problems for a while. Then she would start fainting. There was one time where she even started foaming at the mouth, like literally foaming at the mouth, like a rabid dog. And Tatiana saw a whole bunch of different specialists in the entire Miami area, but they all diagnosed her differently, saying they weren't entirely sure what's wrong, but their guesses were that maybe she had epilepsy. Maybe it was something with her heart.

• 22:39Annie Elise?

  At one point, she even ended up getting a pacemaker put in because they were worried that it was her heart. That was sometime in 2020. But none of that fixed anything. Now, at this point, Tatiana was so sick that she just could not live her own life. All she could do at this point was sit around and just wait to feel terrible again. She couldn't go out. She couldn't have fun. She never knew when the next issue was going to start, and so she never felt comfortable leaving her home. And I mean, this is how bad things got. One day in February of 2022, one of Tatiana's daughters came over to the house to visit. But when she went over to check on her mom, she found Tatiana on the floor, and her lips were completely purple, almost like she hadn't been breathing.

• 23:21Annie Elise?

  At one point, Tatiana's best friend Lisa went to Sergio, and she was kind of just like, hey, look, we have got to do something. This is my best friend. This is your wife. I know you guys are seeing all the doctors. I know you're trying to do everything, but it's not working. So for Tatiana's sake, we need to find a different solution here. But Sergio kind of just shrugged her off. He was like, don't worry about it. We're seeing the doctors. Her situation's no big deal. We're figuring it out. We're getting it under control. And this really infuriated Lisa. They ended up arguing a little bit over it because she was trying to put her foot down and stand up for her best friend Tatiana. Yet Tatiana's own husband was pushing back, telling Lisa she needed to mind her own business. Let him worry about his wife's health and He would figure it out for himself.

• 24:06Annie Elise?

  But Lisa wasn't just gonna go quietly. Sergio could not tell Tatiana's friends what to do. So Lisa connected with Tatiana's sister Aurora, and they ended up traveling to Baltimore, where there is a very good hospital called Johns Hopkins. You may have heard of it. So Tatiana showed up, and the doctors were immediately very, very concerned about her. They were so worried by what they were seeing. They actually ended up putting her on breathing machines six separate times during her visit. That's how concerned they were. She also got a ton of testing done. I mean, she got everything checked out. And then finally, finally, after so many years of feeling sick, not knowing what's wrong, feeling panicked and worried, the doctors finally realized what was wrong with her. She had fentanyl in her system.

• 24:51Annie Elise?

  Fentanyl, fentanyl. Like, how scary is that? Because Tatiana did not take drugs. She didn't take fentanyl on her own, never in a million years. And Aurora and her best friend Lisa knew that as well. They knew that Tatiana would never do that. So the moment that the doctors said that she was on fentanyl, all three of the women were like, "Uh, okay, well, how did she get it? How did it get in her system? Could she have been exposed by accident? What is going on here?" It was all a huge mystery. However, the doctors, they didn't think that Tatiana had ingested this fentanyl by accident. And while they didn't come right out and say that it was possible that somebody might have been poisoning her, they did sort of hint at that as a possibility. They said that once she got out of treatment,

• 25:36Annie Elise?

  once she got better, they suggested that she mix things up a little bit. Not stay at home as much, not be around the usual people in her life, kind of change up your routine and see if anything changes. See if you still get sick, or see if maybe you don't. And I think it's safe to say that between this fentanyl situation and that Friendsgiving poisoning from a few years earlier, Tatiana and her friends were feeling very suspicious. They thought that somebody might be trying to really hurt her, but they weren't sure who. I mean, seriously, who would do something like that to someone? So for safety, they called the police, and they told them everything that had been going on. They also got together all of Tatiana's prescription medication that she had been taking at that point for years.

• 26:19Annie Elise?

  They said to the police, "Hey, can you do some testing on this? Maybe it's something in her prescriptions. Maybe the drugs are drugged." And sure enough, those prescription medications that she was on tested positive for fentanyl. So whoever had been doing this to Tatiana, it was somebody who had access to her medication. Somebody who could come into her home where she was feeling safe, get into the medicine cabinet, or wherever she kept all of her things, and poison her. Now, before she had left John Hopkins, the doctors there asked Tatiana if she knew anybody who might want to do something like this to her. Did she have any enemies? Did she have anybody who might benefit if she died? And right away, Tatiana told them, "No." She couldn't think of a single person who would want to hurt her.

• 27:00Annie Elise?

  But for some reason, the question that they had asked, it stuck in her head. It made her feel a little bit paranoid. So now, every interaction that she had with anyone, a friend, a coworker, a colleague, anybody, every conversation, she would ask herself, "Did this person poison me? Do they want me dead?" And then, one day, a very weird thought occurred to her. "What if it was her husband? What if it was Sergio?" Now, there was no particular reason for her to feel suspicious of Sergio. I mean, aside from that affair, which had been going on for a while and wasn't exactly new, their marriage seemed good. She really thought that he cared about her. Not to mention, he said he broke it off with Nancy, that he was now devoted husband to her again, that he wanted to make things work.

• 27:43Annie Elise?

  So there was certainly no reason for him to want her dead. Except, once that thought popped into her head, she just could not shake it. The more time that went on, the more and more Tatiana became convinced that Sergio might have been slipping her fentanyl after all. But she couldn't prove it. She had no evidence. But by now, she was not trusting Sergio at all. So she ended up moving out of the house that she shared with him. Just like the doctors had recommended, change up the routine, stay somewhere else. And then, shortly after that, she filed for divorce. Now, as Tatiana and Sergio were working out the terms of this divorce, he ended up making her an offer. He said he would give her $20 million, and then, only then, they could consider their marriage over. Which, let me just say, that is

• 28:28Annie Elise?

  Not a bad offer by any means, except Tatiana knew that she stood to make a lot more money. Different sources quote Sergio's net worth as being somewhere between 153 million dollars to 360 million dollars. So not that 20 million is anything to like bat an eye at and be like, uh, no, thank you. But she also knew that she was entitled to more than likely, probably like five times that amount at minimum. And keep in mind, Tatiana had spent their entire marriage of 30 years as a homemaker. She was taking care of the house, taking care of the family, taking care of the kids, the husband, everything. So according to her, if not for her help and support, Sergio never would have been able to even build that empire.

• 29:12Annie Elise?

  So in her mind, she was entitled to half of his money, especially because she technically owned half of all of the businesses. She didn't work for them or have anything to do with their day to day running, but they were hers. And she wanted to make sure that she was getting everything that she thought that she deserved in their divorce. Well, once Sergio heard that, he was definitely not satisfied. He did not want to argue over money. He also didn't want to make any other multimillion dollar offer to her. So in his mind, Tatiana needed to die. He needed to be rid of her. She was the problem and he had to get rid of her. So Tatiana's new house was only a 20 minute drive away from where Sergio lived. However, I will say it was a very secure home. It had two separate security gates. It was kind of, you know, under lock and key.

• 29:57Annie Elise?

  And that made her really feel a lot safer through all of things. She got away from her creepy cheating husband, her lying husband, her possible poisoning husband. And all of these security features really helped make her feel safe, thinking it was helping keep him away. So anyway, from the sound of it, Sergio just didn't want to let Tatiana go. And he especially did not want to let her go with such a big cut of his money. So for a long time, he had been possibly poisoning her with fentanyl. And that poisoning had made her very sick, but it hadn't killed her. And now with Tatiana living away from him, making it harder for him to get access to her medicine or to her in general. And with this ticking clock of this like looming divorce, it sounds like Sergio.

• 30:38Annie Elise?

  Decided he needed some help. He needed to enlist the big guns. So there was this guy who worked for Sergio and his name was Baron Bennett. He worked on Sergio's yacht and one of his job duties was making food and drinks for Sergio and for whoever else was on the yacht, kind of just like the chef or the cook or whatever you would call it. So now Sergio decided, you know what, instead of just being the chef, I'm going to recruit Baron to kill Tatiana. And the best way to do that unsuspectingly would be to have him put something in her food, possibly poison her again. And get this, Baron agreed to do it. But he didn't want to work alone, so he reportedly brought in a whole crew of killers with him.

• 31:21Annie Elise?

  He brought in somebody named Michael Dolfo, Jaren Howard, and Edner Etina. So the plan was to poison Tatiana, this time once and for all, just like Sergio had allegedly been trying to do for years at this point. Except now, instead of just putting fentanyl in her medicine, they also wanted to give her cyanide, arsenic, and even a bigger lethal dose of fentanyl. Apparently Sergio had this idea that the killers could inject her with all of these drugs. And when they did that, she would immediately die and it would just look like a heart attack, that her heart just stopped, you know, beating or exploded or whatever would happen. Which I gotta say, honestly, sounds like incredibly stupid to me.

• 32:03Annie Elise?

  Which let's be honest, most murderers are not criminal masterminds. I get that. It's not like the movies. But did Sergio actually think that now that Tatiana knew that she had been poisoned, and now that she knew that he was behind it, that nobody would be suspicious if she just dropped dead one day? I mean, obviously, they would look at him, right? It makes the most sense. People look at the spouse and the partner as it is already. Now you also throw into the fact that there's a contentious divorce, $350 million on the table, there's a history of poison. I mean, hello, dur, everybody would look at the husband, right? Nobody would just hear that Tatiana died and be like, oh, wow, well, it looks like she had a heart attack. I mean, hello, hello. So it was a terrible plan, but thank God, we love to see when that.

• 32:48Annie Elise?

  That happens. We love to see when criminals are stupid because it makes it so much easier for them to get caught. Now, speaking of stupid moves that make it much easier to catch people, let's talk about what happened on July 2nd, 2022. Because that day, somebody actually set Tatiana's sister's cars on fire. The sister Aurora checked her home security footage the next morning after she found her cars destroyed and burnt in her driveway. And the footage showed that at around 3:20 a.m., somebody just kind of walks directly up her driveway to her Dodge Ram. And then within an instant, there's this huge orange flash of light, like somebody set it on fire. Then, while the Ram was burning, the person did the same thing to Aurora's Tahoe.

• 33:32Annie Elise?

  And since he was standing right next to a fire, it was a little easier to see what he was doing because of the light that was shining on him. And he was holding this red fuel container, just dumping the liquid all over her Tahoe car, all over like the hood of it. Then, he lit something. And it was pretty hard to make out exactly what it was, but I'm picturing it probably being a match or a lighter, maybe even a cigarette. And then he just put it right on that spot of the car where the windshield meets the hood after he had dumped all the gasoline on the hood. And before long, whatever it was that was lit on fire, spread all over the entire car, and it was engulfed in flames. So to summarize, this idiot lit Aurora's cars on fires, all while being caught on camera. I mean, we love to see it.

• 34:16Annie Elise?

  And he was also filmed driving a Silverado to and from the scene. And it's worth mentioning that Michael, one of the members of that like hitman crew, the crew of assassins, he owned a Silverado that looked exactly like the one that was caught on this security camera footage. And thanks to cell phone records, we also know that Michael and another one of these hired guys, a guy named Jaren, were in that area at the time that this all went down. They were also on the phone with one another right before and right after the cars set on fire, which is like, how stupid can you be, right? Then, a month later, on August 12th, the exact same thing happened. See, Aurora had a third car. I don't know if it was maybe a replacement from the ones that had been burned, or maybe she always had a third.

• 34:58Annie Elise?

  Car, I'm not exactly sure, but on that night, that car also got set on fire. And you might be wondering, okay, well, why go after Aurora? Why set her cars on fire? That seems like a really stupid thing to do. What made her such a threat to Sergio? And so much so that she was now a target as well? Well, my personal theory, and this is just speculation because it's not like Sergio ever explained himself. But I think he just wanted her out of his way. Aurora had been Team Tatiana this entire time. She's the one who kind of interfered in his plan of the poisoning all along and took Tatiana to the hospital and helped her realize that she had been poisoned. She was always protecting Tatiana, sticking by her side. She was a threat. She was getting in the way.

• 35:41Annie Elise?

  So my guess is that Sergio knew that if Tatiana died and Aurora survived, that Aurora would complain to the police, that she would make accusations and in theory would make it harder for him to get away with murder. But if Aurora was either dead or maybe too intimidated to speak up, then she wouldn't be able to fight for justice for Tatiana. It would be a little easier for him to try and sweep the murder under the rug and make it all look like an accident. So after all of this happens, now it's August 30th, 2023, and Tatiana had to go to court for a divorce hearing. And that was the day that Baron and his group of assassins decided they were going to try to kill her.

• 36:26Annie Elise?

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• 37:11Annie Elise?

  Chime is a fintech, not bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 37:30Annie Elise?

  So on August 30th, 2023, Tatiana was pulling up to her house and there was a flatbed truck that was pulled over at the curb right by her driveway. It looked like the truck had parked right outside of her house. Except, it wasn't actually parked. The driver was inside the truck, waiting. When Tatiana pulled into her driveway, that flatbed truck then backed up, aiming right at the driver's side of her car, where Tatiana was sitting. Now, the good news is that the driver of this truck was not the world's greatest hitman, not by a long shot. By the time he got the truck moving and got it into reverse, Tatiana was clear of him, completely. He didn't even hit her. Yet, I will say, he did come close. But he kept going. He cranked the steering wheel and backed around

• 38:14Annie Elise?

  so that he hit her car on the other side. So he sort of looped around behind her and then hit her on the passenger side. Now, the good news is, he didn't hit the car hard enough to seriously hurt or kill Tatiana. And if you watch the security camera footage, you can actually see her open the door and get out. She's completely fine. So then, when the flatbed driver tries to get away, she even chases him a little bit in her car, leaving the frame. I mean, he was just like a complete moron. Like, there was no way that he accomplished what he set out to do. And I've got to say, so far as attempted murders go, this one was so stupid, so dumb. Because, first and foremost, Tatiana survived, but also, there were so many witnesses. There was a mail carrier on the street while this

• 38:57Annie Elise?

  was all going down, somebody who watched it all happen. There was also somebody walking by who ran over to check on everything after the crash. I mean, it was literally in broad daylight. And we, of course, know all of this now because we're able to watch back the security camera footage. It was all caught on camera, which is like, one more nail in this idiot's coffin, right? Now, some very eagle-eyed, very detailed, very sleuthy people were also able to look at this footage and realize, hey, the driver of this car is actually wearing the exact same clothing of Edner, another member of the, like, a little assassin group, the clothing he was wearing when he went to Home Depot and rented this truck. So, I mean- It's just, how many receipts do you need against somebody, right?

• 39:39Annie Elise?

  So when the police tracked the truck down, it was parked in a place that was less than one mile away from where Edner lived. And the rental agreement for the truck had been signed by another member of the killer team, Michael. So they're all working together, thinking that they're being smart and strategic, saying, "I'll rent the truck in my name, but you'll be the one that drives it." And this, that, it's like, but no, you're not realizing that there's going to be a paper trail, and even worse, a camera trail, my guy. So anyway, for a while now, Tatiana had basically been telling everyone, like, "Look, my husband is trying to kill me, 100%, I'm positive about it." However, people who knew both her and Sergio, they weren't so sure at first. There just wasn't enough hard evidence to prove that Sergio was behind the fentanyl poisoning.

• 40:22Annie Elise?

  But then, after this hit and run, people started to believe her, they started coming around. Some officers called Barron, which was the head of that murder-for-hire plot team, the one from, that was the chef on the yacht, and they brought him into the station to question him. And Tatiana, she was there for that interrogation. Right away, she recognized him, I mean, remember, he worked on her yacht, he made drinks for her countless times. So of course she knew who he was, she knew that he knew Sergio as well, there was a connection. So in her mind, this was just one more piece of evidence that clearly, obviously, Sergio was trying to have her killed. And even the police agreed. They even said, "You know what, we're gonna put a few extra officers to do more patrols around your house and around your neighborhood to keep you safe, because we do think something

• 41:07Annie Elise?

  is weird here." They didn't have enough evidence to arrest Sergio or press charges, but they could at least keep an eye on her and be ready to step in and help if there was another attempt on her life. And in fact, a few weeks went by, and Tatiana ended up getting another anonymous letter in the mail. This letter said that she should "watch out," and it also warned her that she should be afraid of one of Sergio's nephews. But Tatiana didn't think that the nephew was the problem. She thought that this letter was from Sergio, or from someone who was working for him, who was trying to scare her. While also deflecting blame toward somebody else, you know, classic misdirection so that she would kind of let her guard down and be looking in the direction of somebody else. And if you're like me, you might be wondering and asking yourself in a very frustrated way,

• 41:52Annie Elise?

  why wasn't anybody arresting Sergio? I mean, clearly, the writing was on the wall. So why weren't the police at least investigating him and seeing if they could find enough evidence to charge him with something? Well, the problem was, was that every time the police looked closely at Sergio, something bad would happen to him, almost like he was being targeted as well. So he would just say like, no, look, I'm a victim too. They're not just after my wife, they're after me as well. Whoever's trying to hurt Tatiana is also trying to hurt me. And he almost made it sound like he was just this innocent victim who got like the wrong place, wrong time, got caught up in it. Like, these people, whoever they are, they're targeting Tatiana, and because of that, they're also targeting me.

• 42:34Annie Elise?

  Not as though like it would be somebody targeting both of them for a business venture or something like that, more that he was just like, you know, an innocent casualty in all of it. And let me just give you an example of one of those instances. So back in 2022, his BMW had been vandalized. Then, the next year, in September of 2023, his BMW was damaged again. This time, somebody literally set fire to it, just like Aurora's cars, somebody set it on fire. And this all happened at the very beginning of September, just one week after the August hit and run where Tatiana was almost killed in the driveway. So to hear Sergio tell it, he couldn't have been behind these attacks because he also was being attacked. According to Sergio, he also got a call one day that was very, very threatening.

• 43:19Annie Elise?

  He didn't recognize the caller's voice, but he said that they had a Colombian accent and that they said, "You better settle with your wife. We can't afford to be in a lawsuit." Then, not long afterward, a car drove by Sergio's home and shot at it. Nobody was hurt luckily, but it really seemed like he was a victim too, that he was being targeted as well. Now, eventually, Sergio apparently just got sick of waiting for Baron and his like team of misfits to try to finish the job. He had hired them to kill Tatiana. Yet his wife was still alive. And once it became clear to him that Baron and the others weren't going to cut it. They weren't smart enough. They weren't smooth enough. Whatever the reason was, he reportedly hired someone much more dangerous to pull off the job.

• 44:02Annie Elise?

  At some time in the past, Sergio had needed some roofing work done. And one of those roofers that he had worked with was a man named Fausto Villar. And Fausto was already a convicted felon at that time. He previously spent six years in prison on armed robbery charges. And more importantly, he was someone who was all too happy to agree when Sergio came to him, offering him money to kill Tatiana. The deal that Sergio offered him was similar to the one that he had worked out with Baron before. He wanted Fausto to build a team, to get a bunch of people to help him commit this murder, and that the whole team altogether would make 150 grand for the murder.

• 44:42Annie Elise?

  They would also get another 150 on top of that if they could pull it off without anybody suspecting Sergio. Which I have a lot of thoughts about that, okay? First, let's talk about these amounts. Sergio was a millionaire, a multimillionaire. And he was offering either 150 grand or $300,000, depending on if they did it or not, pulled it off like without a hitch as a bonus. And I don't think that there would ever be any amount that would make it okay for somebody to kill somebody. But I also gotta say, in the grand scheme of things, that feels incredibly low compared to his net worth to be offering to pay somebody, right? And let me just do the math on that. Let's go back to my good friend Siri.

• 45:22Annie Elise?

  Siri, what percentage is $300,000 of $350 million?

• 45:29Speaker 09

  It's approximately nine cents.

• 45:31Annie Elise?

  No, no, percent.

• 45:33Speaker 09

  What? I didn't get that. Could you try again?

• 45:35Annie Elise?

  Siri, what is the percentage of $300,000 of $350 million?

• 45:43Speaker 09

  I found this on the web.

• 45:44Annie Elise?

  Okay, this is a percentage calculator. This isn't helping. Whatever, guys. Okay, you get what I'm trying to say, right? It's a miniscule amount in comparison, especially when you break it down and figure out that each person involved in this team would get something like thirty or sixty thousand dollars for the murder. Again, not that any amount makes it right, but like, I would just think that it would probably be more money than that. And let's also talk about that bonus. They would only get that bonus if the murder wasn't linked to Sergio. Meaning, he would have been okay getting caught with the murder, and that he just would have only paid a hundred and fifty instead of three hundred thousand dollars. Which makes no sense to me. Like, you're saying, hey, here's a hundred and fifty. If I get caught, it's okay. But if I don't get caught and if no suspicion goes on me, I'll give you three hundred. Just seems weird.

• 46:28Annie Elise?

  So anyway, Fausto agreed to the terms, and he put a team together. It included Avery Bivins, who was coordinating and planning the whole thing. Avery brought in Clementa Johnson and Clementa's cousin Vernon, who would actually do the actual murder, actually shoot Tatiana. And then lastly, they brought in somebody named Diori. They were sort of like a backup support henchmen in all of this. Now Sergio also gave this team a deadline. He didn't want them to just kill Tatiana. He also wanted her to be dead by a certain date. Namely, June twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-four. Well, two days before that deadline hit, on Saturday, June twenty-second, Tatiana had plans to meet up with a friend at a resort in Key Largo, which is about an hour and a half away from where she lived.

• 47:12Annie Elise?

  So she made the drive, and she didn't realize it at the time. But two of Sergio's goons, his little henchmen, were following her the whole time. They didn't try to do anything that day. They were just following her. But security footage showed a Dodge Ram in the resort's parking lot, and I want you to keep that in mind. The next day, on Sunday, June twenty-third, Tatiana went to church in the morning. It was part of her routine. She went to church every single week. She sat through the service, got her chance to connect with God, and then drove home. Now, she had no idea that the entire time that she was in church, Vernon had been sitting out front of her house, waiting for her to get back. And he was driving a Dodge Ram, the same kind of car that was at the resort. when Tatiana was there the day before.

• 47:56Annie Elise?

  Then, the moment that Tatiana pulled into the driveway, Vernon ran up to her with a gun. Now, the good news is, is that Tatiana spotted him right away. And thank God, she had already survived other attempts on her life that she knew she needed to keep her eyes open. I mean, I say that in a weird ass-backwards kind of way. It's like, thank goodness she was always watching her back. But also, like, how awful is that? That she had to go through this so many times to where she still had to be watching her back? But she knew to be careful. So, the second she saw Vernon coming towards her, she slammed her foot on the gas and she drove all the way around her house into the backyard. And this whole time that she was driving, she was also just laying on the horn, making a ton of noise so that people would come out of their houses, they would start looking

• 48:39Annie Elise?

  around, people would hear the commotion. She was hoping that if witnesses were outside, Vernon wouldn't be able to do anything, and he wouldn't try to do anything. And it worked. See, Tatiana's daughter, Alessandra, was at the house at the time. She hadn't gone to church with Tatiana. But she heard those horns, and maybe she also heard the tires screeching too, I'm not sure, but she did come outside. Now, unfortunately, one of the gunmen grabbed her arm and yelled at her to get back inside. But she was able to call for help in that time, in the midst of all of this. And her 911 call is truly chilling.

• 49:14Speaker 05

  Hi, Chris, 911 with the address to your emergency. Okay.

• 49:17Speaker 10

  Someone with a gun is here.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  Okay, ma'am, can you repeat the address one more time? And what's going on there, ma'am?

• 49:24Speaker 10

  There's a gun, there's a guy with a gun, please.

• 49:26Speaker 05

  What do you mean, there's a guy with a gun?

• 49:29Speaker 10

  Yes, he just pointed a gun at me, and they're still here.

• 49:33Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 49:36Speaker 10

  Please, are they almost here?

• 49:38Speaker 05

  Yes, ma'am, we're sending officers on the way now, okay? How many individuals are there?

• 49:42Speaker 10

  I don't know, it's just me and my dog, but I'm outside, I'm outside, inside, I'm coming.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  Ma'am, I need you to calm down, okay? How many individuals are there?

• 49:51Speaker 10

  Just me.

• 49:55Speaker 05

  Okay, how many are there ma'am?

• 49:57Speaker 10

  Just me, just me, it's just...

• 49:59Speaker 05

  No, how many individuals?

• 50:01Speaker 10

  I think they left, they left.

• 50:03Speaker 05

  Okay, but who pulled a gun on you?

• 50:06Speaker 10

  A man.

• 50:08Speaker 05

  Okay, is he still there? Is he trying to break into your house? Or what is it that he's trying to do?

• 50:12Speaker 10

  We're waiting here in the house.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  Are they trying, are they trying to break into your house ma'am?

• 50:18Speaker 10

  I don't know, I can't see, I don't know.

• 50:22Speaker 10

  Please.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Okay, well I'm gonna send help on the way now, okay? What is your name?

• 50:26Speaker 10

  Are they not on their way yet?

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 10

  It's Ale, my name is Ale.

• 50:32Speaker 05

  What is your name ma'am?

• 50:34Speaker 10

  Ale, A-L-E.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  Hold on. Attention all units. Special attention. Any other units there?

• 50:42Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 50:44Speaker 05

  Okay, is there anyone out there with you?

• 50:47Speaker 10

  No, I need to tell my mom not to come home. I think they might be looking for her. She, she's a victim.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 50:54Speaker 10

  I hear, I hear a car. Can I call my mom, please?

• 50:58Speaker 05

  No, I need you to stay on the line with me ma'am. We have officers on the way. Did you see if it was a white, black, Hispanic male?

• 51:05Speaker 10

  It's a black male.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  Black male? Was he wearing a good hoodie or something?

• 51:08Speaker 10

  Oh my god, my mom's here. My mom's here. They might have shot her.

• 51:13Speaker 05

  Ma'am, what is your name ma'am?

• 51:16Speaker 10

  Ale.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  What is your name ma'am?

• 51:18Speaker 10

  A-L-E, Ale. But my mom is here, they might have shot her.

• 51:24Speaker 05

  Okay, did you see what he was wearing?

• 51:26Speaker 10

  No, he was had a mask on.

• 51:29Speaker 05

  Okay, so we sent, I told them...

• 51:31Speaker 10

  Why are they not here yet?

• 51:33Speaker 05

  They're, they're on their way there ma'am. No one's responding to me. Okay, did you see what he was wearing ma'am?

• 51:42Annie Elise?

  Now clearly Alessandra didn't know the full story of what had happened. She didn't see the entire confrontation. In fact, I've done a lot of research and I'm not 100% sure exactly what happened next. Because honestly, it sounds like everything at the scene got pretty chaotic pretty quickly. And maybe even Alessandra, Tatiana and Vernon had a hard time keeping track of what was going on. But the point... Point is that Vernon didn't want to hurt Alessandra. She wasn't the target, but she was in the way. She was trying to protect Tatiana, and Tatiana was probably trying to protect her daughter, like almost any mother would. And in all of the confusion with the police about to get there, Alessandra and Tatiana managed to escape without getting hurt or shot.

• 52:24Annie Elise?

  Then, once they were away from him, Vernon tried to get away. But, like all the others, he was not a smart criminal, which, I don't know if I've made that clear enough, guys, but these guys were complete morons. But the point is, he got caught driving away, because he got caught on surveillance cameras. So the police knew exactly what kind of car he was in, and it only took them one day before they tracked his Dodge Ram down. And from there, it was just a matter of connecting the dots. Once the police identified Vernon, they also learned that Avery had been worked into this plot as well. Now unfortunately, I don't know what evidence specifically tipped the police off about Avery, but the point is, they did learn of his identity. And the cops also learned that Avery, Diori, and Fausto

• 53:08Annie Elise?

  all had served time together in the same prison. That's how they all met. I mean, birds of a feather, right? They were all incarcerated together. So that was enough for the police to suspect Fausto. However, they didn't have enough information or evidence to arrest him on that. They couldn't press charges. They did listen in on his phone, though, and one day, he made a phone call to Avery, not realizing that the officers were recording the line. And everything that he said during that call was recorded. They talked very openly about the murder plot, about how they needed to protect their employer, all while calling him out by his name, straight up saying it was Sergio Pino. Again, real criminal masterminds we've got here. Now, in that same call, Avery told Fausto to delete his Instagram.

• 53:52Annie Elise?

  He kept saying, "Delete, delete, delete." They even talked about the other murder crew, the first one that Sergio had hired, the ones that apparently couldn't cut it, so he had to replace them and hire them with a new crew. They were just outright talking about how hard Sergio was working to have his wife Tatiana killed. And if it wasn't such a depraved thing to do, this situation- would almost be funny because on this phone call Avery and Fausto were saying things like make sure the police don't find out about the other team. We don't want to get charged with conspiracy to commit murder on top of everything else. In the meantime, like they were literally laying out all of the evidence, even more than the police ever even knew about. So perfectly, just right there on a silver platter. I mean, we love to see it.

• 54:38Speaker 11

  But like, but like, were the first guys [BLEEP] up, eh? Wasn't this? Why would you, if you get pinched, look at how this becomes now a conspiracy? Now you can't shake the rap. You're two boys now, or whatever [BLEEP] they can shake the rap. Yo. We just went to try to

• 55:01Speaker 11

  if that, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what I, I don't know, there's no proof of it. Yeah, okay.

• 55:08Speaker 11

  But they started saying, oh, no, no, and oh, no, no, and they punish, and you now it becomes, now they don't really got a proof much. A conspiracy is, a conspiracy is not hard to prove. You don't even have to prove it. You don't even have to prove it. Like, you just gotta go out and show, this guy knew this guy, this guy knew this guy. I said, you're done, my child. But anyway, anyway, today, tomorrow, whatever you have a chance, I will scope out like a draw you. Do that for me. Erase that today. And then I'm gonna go [BLEEP] at zero north thirty on the [BLEEP] like for a while, dark.

• 55:48Speaker 11

  Eh, we just gotta wait a CG. Next, next month, next two months, next [BLEEP] three months, I don't know how long it's gonna take. Listen, I'm gonna tell you quickly, we need a plan where, let's say, God forbid, they lock on your door one day.

• 56:04Speaker 11

  Or, or like whatever the case, someone's gotta let me know through, through here, eh? Like a call or something, yo. Yo, what if, you know, so I don't know who you want to tell that to, and it's through here. But this, I wanna listen, you wanna turn it?

• 56:23Speaker 11

  Yeah, you know where I stand. I know where you stand. You know what [BLEEP] needs from you, which is? Yeah. And? The [BLEEP] rap? Done.

• 56:36Speaker 11

  Let's get this time. Might be a month, it might be two, it might be three.

• 56:41Speaker 11

  Hopefully, it's even less. But Gee, I need you just to... Do what you [bleep] do, I don't know, you're a [bleep] gangster, you know how to deal with [bleep]. Deal with your people. And I promise, when it's all said and done, you can go. At the end of the day, it was [bleep]. It's gonna cost. I'll give some [bleep]. It's... It gonna... If you got it. If you got it. I'm not saying this, but if you got it. And I can tell you, either you go to prison. For [bleep] twenty years. Or you gotta give me half my [bleep] dough, or you don't know. I think that you'll [bleep] go and give me half my [bleep].

• 57:19Speaker 11

  So at the end of the day, when it's all [bleep] said and done. I'm sure that there will be a little gift for me and... And like for you. So let's just... Let's just do what [bleep] we gotta do, Gee, that's right.

• 57:31Speaker 12

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 12

  You dig out it, you gotta take care of your brother.

• 57:39Speaker 11

  No, I know. That as soon as he sees the... That the [bleep] is on players, that's when I... That's when I can tell him, "Hey. Here you go." You know what I mean, I get that, that's right?

• 57:47Speaker 12

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 11

  But now, it all depends on how we move, Gee. It's all about how we [bleep].

• 57:55Speaker 12

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 12

  I got you.

• 58:00Speaker 12

  That is...

• 58:02Annie Elise?

  So from there, the investigators got a warrant to search Sergio's phone. And sure enough, it showed that he had made several phone calls to Fausto. They were definitely in contact. But he insisted that he was innocent. He was still trying to say that he had nothing to do with this murder plot. At one time, he even wrote his family a letter where he said that all of these suspicions and all of these allegations against him were just entirely false. It wasn't true. He also talked big in public, saying that he was actually happy that the police were investigating him. Because according to Sergio, he had nothing to hide. And the investigation would prove that he was completely innocent. And he was still saying that when the police raided his house on the night of Monday, June 28th. An FBI squad...

• 58:45Annie Elise?

  stormed his $4.2 million home, searching it for any evidence that they could find. And at that exact same time, another team was at his office checking to see if there was anything suspicious at Sergio's work. Now, the agents who were at Sergio's home were fully prepared for resistance or for violence. They showed up in full SWAT gear. They had armor, they had shields, helmets, everything. And instead of just knocking on the door and asking to come in and search, they set off flashbangs, those big explosives that make a lot of light, a lot of sound, where it's either meant to like drive Sergio out of the house or to get his attention. And after doing that, somebody then got on a megaphone and told Sergio that he needed to come out immediately. They said they had a warrant, that they were gonna search the place whether Sergio liked it or not.

• 59:30Annie Elise?

  And I mean, it was a huge, noisy, like, showy production. The neighbors saw everything. They saw the FBI agents, they saw drones hovering over the house in the backyard. I think the drones were trying to make sure that Sergio didn't try to like flee on foot, but it was a whole thing, chaos, I mean, a full scene. And for three hours, the teams were at Sergio's house and also at his workplace. But they never publicly said what they found, anything. But I do know that they found plenty at Tatiana's house. Because at the exact same time that they were going through all of Sergio's things, a group of police officers went to her house to collect evidence from her too. There were so many squad cars on the street.

• 1:00:12Annie Elise?

  I mean, they had their lights flashing, they had the road blocked off, so much so that some of Tatiana's neighbors thought that something had happened to her, that maybe she had been killed or hurt. Maybe Sergio's murder plan had finally worked out.

• 1:00:31Speaker 13

  Hey, what's up, guys? It's Haley Bailey. Okay, I need to tell you about something. I just got YouTube Premium. It's got tons of awesome features, like offline downloads, so I can download my favorite videos before I travel and watch them whenever I don't have Wi-Fi. Because we all know airplane Wi-Fi is the worst. I get ad-free, I get backroom play, and there's like a ton more in there. You should try it. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Try it now for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel any time. That's a mouthful.

• 1:01:09Annie Elise?

  Well, the truth was Tatiana was fine. Better than fine, actually. This was now her opportunity to hand over her ring camera footage, her clips from her security cameras, and everything else that she had that could prove that she had survived multiple attempts on her life. There might have also been other evidence that she was able to give as well. I'm not sure, because when different reporters reached out to her to ask her what was going on, she just declined to comment. Sergio also stayed silent whenever the press asked him for a statement. All he would say, one way or another, was that he was innocent. Well, then there was a second raid on July 16th, 2024. A huge SWAT team got together outside of his house right before dawn. It was right after 6 a.m.

• 1:01:52Annie Elise?

  They let him know that they were there, and they told Sergio, "Look, you need to come out, you need to surrender." Yet Sergio refused. He was not willing to give himself up. Which is really interesting when you break it down, right? Because this whole time, he had been on this, like, innocence campaign, saying, "He was a victim too, he had nothing to do with anything." Yet now, he's refusing to come out of his house. Well, three and a half hours went by with no progress either way. Sergio wouldn't come out, the police didn't want to go in and get him, maybe it was because they weren't sure if he would be armed, they weren't sure if it would be dangerous and it would escalate the situation. But along the way, they started setting off those flashbangs in Sergio's house, just like they had done before. And while all of this was going on, everybody was trying to call Sergio, and they were trying to convince him to just give himself up.

• 1:02:37Annie Elise?

  And I'm talking professional hostage negotiators. They were calling him, his family, his friends, even the woman who he allegedly had been having that affair with, Nancy. They were all trying to call and reason with him. Sergio was talking to his lawyer through all of this, and at one time, the lawyer went to the police and said that Sergio was willing to turn himself in. He wanted to surrender peacefully. He didn't want to see this whole hostage situation blow up any further and become more intense than it already was. But it's hard to say if that was true, if the lawyer was accurately describing the situation, and if Sergio was being honest about his actual mental state. Because around 10 a.m., after Many hours, several loud banging noises came out of the house. They weren't the flash bangs that the police had set off. This was something else.

• 1:03:22Annie Elise?

  And they were loud enough that everybody could hear them outside. One bystander even caught the noise on camera and tweeted it afterward.

• 1:03:37Annie Elise?

  The police knew exactly what those sounds meant, exactly what had happened. But still, to be safe, they brought in the fire department and the ambulances. And then everyone went into Sergio's house around 10:20 a.m. The ground floor was empty, so they headed up to the second floor. And there, in Sergio's bedroom, they found him. He was dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. So Sergio took his own life rather than face justice, rather than face the consequences for trying to kill his wife Tatiana. And even though the things he did were horrible, and let's be clear, I think this guy was a truly horrible wannabe killer, there were people who loved him, and they're grieving him now. That said, the people who are grieving him are doing it in private.

• 1:04:20Annie Elise?

  And as of this recording, his Facebook profile still has not been converted to a memorial page yet. In fact, his account is private, which, I gotta say, it makes a little bit of sense because it would be weird to ask people to write nice, you know, eulogy messages or rest in peace kind of messages for somebody who died only because they were about to get caught for attempted murder. That's like asking people to write nice things on Brian Laundrie's page before his body was found, right? Nobody, no, no, no, no, that's not how it works. Yet still, one of his companies, Century Home Builders, put out this public statement on their Instagram. "It is with great sadness that we continue to mourn the loss of our founder, Sergio Pino. In light of this difficult situation, we want to assure you that Century Home Builders

• 1:05:05Annie Elise?

  Group remains strong, and we are committed to serving you with the same dedication and excellence that you have come to expect from us." And while I would expect a post like that from a company because they're not going to get into the nitty gritty drama of it all, it kind of seemed like that was the tone that carried through, almost like a lot of people were trying to dance around. Around the truth of what Sergio really did. For example, on one of the posts in his obituary online, it read, "Sergio, you were a good friend, always ready to join me on an adventure, and always honest, faithful, and full of integrity. We both learned a lot from each other. I hope God understands the desperation you were driven to. I wish you well on this next journey." Now, I'm just glad that Tatiana had people around her to help her and support her,

• 1:05:50Annie Elise?

  because I don't know if she would have survived all of this if it weren't for people like her best friend Lisa and her sister Aurora. They were the ones who got her to the hospital and got her diagnosed in the first place with that fentanyl poisoning. Now, yes, her sister ended up getting a target put on her back for her efforts, but she did the right thing, and she very likely saved her sister's life. Tatiana even appeared on Lisa's podcast, Faith with Friends, where she gave her take on all of this.

• 1:06:16Speaker 14

  And that really just, just breaks your heart. But God is close to the brokenhearted, it says in the Bible. So, I, I, I turned to friends, I turned to family, and, and ultimately, God was the one who just kind of mended my heart. He mended my wounds. And, and, and there's going to be suffering, and I've gone through not only relationship suffering, but I've gone through physical suffering. And, and again, Jesus was there.

• 1:06:53Annie Elise?

  Now, you can probably tell from the dates that I've thrown out there, that this case is still active. The investigation is ongoing. None of the people who Sergio allegedly hired to kill his wife have gone to trial yet. But I can tell you that all nine of them have been indicted. Now, I will say this too. Sadly, even though Sergio is dead, and technically, he shouldn't be able to hurt Tatiana anymore, he's still making her life difficult from beyond the grave. Because just one day before he took his own life, probably knowing already what he planned to do, he changed his will. He made it so that she would inherit nothing. Sort of his final, like, F off to his wife. And he didn't just update his will. Got all of his affairs in order. He moved money around to different accounts.

• 1:07:38Annie Elise?

  He signed paperwork naming other people as the new owners of different businesses and different accounts. And he literally calculated how much he would owe on a bunch of different bills in the next couple of months. Then he set that money aside so that whoever inherited his money after his death would be able to keep everything running smoothly. He also changed the documents for his companies so that instead of co-owning everything 50/50 with Tatiana, he was the sole owner. It was so cold and so calculating from a man who was literally less than 24 hours away from taking his own life. His main goal was to just shut his wife out of everything. And I don't know exactly how all of that works. I would imagine that even with your business, it's like a bank account.

• 1:08:20Annie Elise?

  If you're 50/50 on something, doesn't the other person have to sign it or acknowledge it or be able to like, you know, counter that? I don't, it just some, maybe there's some other inner workings that I don't know about where she is by, uh, fighting this, but it doesn't seem like somebody can just change all of their stuff to be the sole owner and like ice somebody out without their knowledge, right? And in fact, her lawyers are fighting this and they're trying to use the evidence of him trying to have her killed as part of this, saying like, look, this was all part of his master plan, his, uh, his whole thing to attack her to leave her with nothing. And they're going, you know, through all the courts, all the laws, all the motions, all the things, trying to fight this, but it is a pretty messy situation.

• 1:09:00Speaker 15

  If they own property jointly, you know, as tenants by the entirety of that husband and wife, then what would happen is the wife would automatically be entitled to all of the assets that were owned in that fashion.

• 1:09:13Speaker 06

  A judge today said deciding what they held together or separately is for another day. First, should appoint someone to see the assets while lawyers square off.

• 1:09:23Annie Elise?

  Now here's a big twist and something that kind of like made my jaw drop. If you're watching this episode on YouTube, you might've seen that there was a woman sitting next to Tatiana in court just now. She was about an arm's length away from her. And if you're listening to the podcast, I mean, consider hopping onto YouTube later to watch this clip because it is interesting because that woman who was sitting Right next to her, it was Nancy Pastor, Sergio's mistress. Now, as for all of the money, the 350 million, we know he tried to ice Tatiana out of that. But he also tried to have his brother Carlos control the estate, saying that the money should go to his kids. Here's how it's going to be divvied up with the business owners, all of these things. However, some, there was some sort of wrinkle in that.

• 1:10:06Annie Elise?

  And there was also allegations that Carlos, his brother, was involved in the whole murder for hire plot. Although I'll be clear, that is all allegations, it has not been proven. But it's just making everything really messy. So as of right now, the whole inheritance thing is still wrapped up in the courts. Nobody knows who's getting what money, when it's going to happen, what goes where. And frankly, the whole case is just a mess, every single part of it. But one thing that I still wonder about, even now, after everything we know, is why did Sergio allegedly poison Tatiana in the first place? A lot of the news coverage said that he wanted to poison her and kill her because the divorce negotiations were going so poorly and she was going to try to take half of everything.

• 1:10:48Annie Elise?

  However, when you think about it, the Friendsgiving Brussels sprouts incident and the fentanyl poisoning were all from way before she filed for divorce, before any negotiations could go bad. So was it because he really did want to be with his mistress Nancy? And that's why she was at that court hearing too? Like, did he want to be with her, but he didn't want to divorce Tatiana? So he wanted to kill her, then when she was going to divorce him, then it was like game on, foot on the pedal. I really need to kill her. I don't know, I just, I can't figure out what his motive was. Or was he telling the truth when he said he had absolutely nothing to do with it? Was somebody else targeting Tatiana the entire time? Could it have been the brother Carlos, as people are alleging? I mean, I, my personal opinion is a big fat eye roll to that.

• 1:11:31Annie Elise?

  I think no, I think the writing is on the wall, but I'm curious to know what you guys think. In any event, it's kind of like, again, these greedy, greedy wealthy people, just get a divorce. I know you don't want to give up 150 mil. I got it, I get it, just do it. Because now you're dead, your kids don't have their father, you tormented this woman who you were with for 30 years. Like, to what end? Like, how did you? Win in this. Did the ends justify the means? I don't know. It just makes no sense to me. So I'm curious to know what you guys think the motive was behind all of this. Like, because again, the first poisoning that went on for years was years before the divorce. So what was the purpose of that? Why? And was he trying to kill her whole friend group with the Brussels sprouts? I mean, what the heck, right?

• 1:12:16Annie Elise?

  So definitely let me know what you guys think. Thank you for tuning into Another Case. I will be back on the mic with you on Thursday with headline highlights where we are breaking down everything this week in the true crime world. All right, guys. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to follow the podcast if you're not already so that you don't miss these episodes in the future. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't join any cults, and just get a divorce. All right, bye.

• 1:12:51Speaker 16

  What's up, sports fans? I'm Rachel D'Amato, here to tell you about my show Courtside Club. If you love hoops and hot takes, then you're in the right place. Want to hear about Katelyn Clark's unstoppable rise in the WNBA? How stars like Wemby and Luka Doncic are dominating the NBA? Or maybe you just want the tea on this week's most viral sports moments. Don't worry, we'll keep you updated on all of it. So grab your popcorn and come hang with us. Courtside. You can listen to Courtside Club wherever you get your podcasts. Oui et ah.

• 1:13:22Speaker 12

  Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From roof repair to emergency plumbing and more. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com.