A Hawaii man was sentenced to over 33 years in prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for enticement of a minor, sex trafficking of a minor, production and receipt of child pornography, and harassment offenses.
Court documents say that Dwayne Yuen, 52, of Honolulu, exploited and harassed at least ten victims who he met through youth basketball, where he served as a coach and mentor.
“The defendant was a youth basketball coach who shamelessly sexually exploited, abused, harassed, and threatened his young victims, causing incalculable harm to them,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti said in a statement. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to secure justice for victims of these atrocious crimes, especially when such acts are committed by individuals who seek and abuse the trust of their communities in order to target and exploit vulnerable children.”
From 2005 to 2023, Yuen engaged in extensive grooming of his victims, many of whom were especially vulnerable because of financial or family stressors, purchasing elaborate gifts for them and spending much time alone with them.
“Dwayne Yuen grossly and repeatedly violated the sacred trust placed in him by his employer and the parents and families of his young female victims,” Acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson for the District of Hawaii said in a statement. “He used his power and position to groom and then serially exploit and victimize the young girls entrusted to his care. While nothing can ever undo the harm he has caused these children and their families, it is our sincere hope that today’s sentence will ensure that our community and children are protected from him, and serve to deter other predators like him in the future. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and our dedicated law enforcement partners at the FBI will always continue to hunt down and bring to justice all who seek to exploit Hawaii’s children.”
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Once trust was established, Yuen began engaging in sexual conversations with his victims, including sending them sexually explicit images. In the early 2000s, he coerced and forced sexual contact with victims as young as 15 years old.
“Yuen held a position of trust that demanded he protect and inspire young athletes,” said FBI Criminal Investigative Division Assistant Director Jose A. Perez. “Instead, he abused his authority by preying upon and threatening his young victims. Today’s sentencing reinforces the message that the victimization of children will not be tolerated by law enforcement. The FBI will continue to meticulously investigate these crimes, which cause irreparable harm and trauma to our nation’s youth.”
He used threats to harm his victims’ reputation and basketball career to stop them from disclosing or attempting to stop his abuse. He threatened at least one victim with rape and death and threatened, blackmailed, and physically assaulted another victim who tried to avoid his sexual advances.
He would pay poor players that he coached to send him sexually explicit images or engage in sexually explicit conversations.
He got one minor victim, a former player that he knew was a minor, to engage in a sexually explicit video call in 2020, which he then took screenshots of and sent on at least one occasion to another victim.
He also used unidentified numbers to send harassing messages to numerous former players, sometimes at the rate of a hundred times a day.
The FBI Honolulu Field Office investigated the case. Trial Attorney Gwendelynn Bills of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Perlmutter of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii prosecuted the case. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
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