Youth basketball coach arrested on charges he sent child lewd texts, Miami police say
A basketball coach at a Miami youth center was arrested Tuesday on charges he exposed himself to a 10-year-old boy and sent him lewd text messages, according to police.
Charles Williams, 26, is being held without bond at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on several felony charges, including lewd and lascivious exhibition on a child, lewd and lascivious behavior and child molestation.
The victim’s 19-year-old brother discovered the messages on his younger sibling’s phone when the child was sleeping, and told police he had found it odd that Williams was hanging out online with the boy and playing video games with him, according to the arrest report.
Williams began messaging the boy through cellphone texts and through the Sony PlayStation video game messenger months ago after they met through a 14-year-old friend at a community center, according to the report.
In the messages, Williams sent photos to the child of his genitalia and asked the boy to show photos of his private parts in exchange for an electric scooter, Miami police detectives said in their report.
After the boy sent the photos to Williams, he responded with laughing emojis and instructed the child to delete the messages and unsend them, police said.
The older brother took photos of the messages and sent them to the child’s mother, who then called the police.
Another time, Williams sent the boy a pornographic video of a man and a woman having sex, and he asked the boy if he thought he could do that, the report states.
The boy told his older brother that Williams once contacted him on a FaceTime call and exposed himself, and then asked the boy to do the same, which the child said he declined to do, according to police.
The boy’s stepfather called the Belafonte Tacolcy Center in Miami, where Williams coaches basketball, according to police, and asked the athletic director to verify the phone number on which the inappropriate messages were sent. The athletic director confirmed the number was the same he had on record as belonging to Williams, according to the arrest affidavit.
The Belafonte Tacolcy Center didn’t immediately respond to telephone and emailed messages from the Miami Herald seeking comment on Williams.
Information on Williams’ legal representation was not immediately available. He is currently serving probation in Palm Beach County for a 2020 grand theft arrest by Riviera Beach police, according to the arrest affidavit and court records.
