Ex-basketball coach pleads guilty to sending young boys lewd texts, photos

Miami-Dade County admin September 10, 2026 0 Comments

Ex-basketball coach pleads guilty to sending young boys lewd texts, photos

A former basketball coach at a Miami community center who sent young boys lewd texts pleaded guilty in court Thursday morning.

As a result of the plea deal, Charles Akim Williams, 28, will have to serve just over six years in prison followed by 10 years of probation. He pleaded guilty to a slew of charges, including lewd and lascivious exhibition and promoting sexual performance by a child.

Williams was also ordered to stay away from the three victims, who were between 6 and 10 years old. Williams was a basketball coach at the Belafonte Tacolcy Center, 6161 NW Ninth Ave. in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.

Appearing via Zoom, the mother of the victims, who the Miami Herald is not naming, slammed Williams for preying on her son. She said she and her son had to move from Miami due to Williams’ predatory behavior.

“I trusted you, and my son trusted you,” the victim’s mother said in court. “I hope you get everything you deserved.”

Williams, who was wearing orange jail attire and a white face mask, sat quietly as the woman spoke. After entering his plea, a corrections officer fingerprinted him.

In February 2025, Williams was arrested and accused of exposing himself to a 10-year-old boy — and asking the child for pictures of his genitals.

The victim’s 19-year-old brother discovered text messages on his younger sibling’s phone when the child was sleeping, according to the arrest report. The older brother told police he found it odd that Williams was talking to the boy and playing video games with him.

READ MORE: Youth basketball coach arrested on charges he sent child lewd texts, Miami police say

Williams began messaging the boy through phone texts and the Sony PlayStation video game messenger months before, the report states. Williams and the boy met through the boy’s 14-year-old friend at a community center, according to the report.

In the string of texts, Williams asked the boy to show him his private parts in exchange for an electric scooter, according to the report. After the boy sent Williams the photos, he responded with laughing emojis and instructed the child to delete the messages and unsend them, police said.

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.

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.

Months later, in August 2025, Williams was arrested after police found more lewd messages when searching his phone. Investigators found pictures that Williams had saved of a 10-year-old’s genitals, according to his arrest report.

The photo came from a FaceTime he had with the 10-year-old and a 13-year-old boy. The teen took a screenshot of the boy’s genitals while the boy was in the shower — and then sent it to Williams as a “joke,” he told police.

When the 10-year-old boy was questioned, he told police that Williams had asked him to send pictures of his genitals, but he refused. He said the photo Williams had was the FaceTime call, during which he was taking a shower and accidentally exposing himself to the camera.

In 2021, Williams was also accused of pulling down the pants of a 6-year-old boy and touching his buttocks while in after school care at Legion Park, 6447 NE Seventh Ave. in the Upper East Side area of Miami. The lewd and lascivious molestation charge in that case was dropped in 2023 after Williams struck a plea deal to a felony battery charge, court records show.

Miami Herald staff writer David Goodhue contributed to this report

This story was originally published September 10, 2026 at 1:34 PM.