Dave Reardon: Arrest of ex-coach Dwayne Yuen hopefully will lead to closure

“I’ve met Mr. Yuen myself. He seemed arrogant but nice.”

— Post on a Hawaii sports fan website, May 2020

The above-referenced Mr. Yuen is Dwayne Yuen, a former (permanently, hopefully) girls basketball coach arrested by the FBI on Thursday on allegations of possessing child pornography.

Unless you really want to split hairs, by definition a person can’t be “arrogant” and “nice.” I’ve never seen or heard anyone described that way before, at least in the same sentence.

But, I have an idea of where the poster was coming from.

Sexual predators are rarely transparent, and may often appear to be “nice.” They might do “nice” things, like give rides to kids and buy them things. It’s part of what is called grooming, which is how predators gain the trust of vulnerable people, especially children.

Continuing to commit crimes after being caught? That can be considered the height of arrogance.

Yuen’s arrest last week was for allegations of actions taken by him in 2020 — interactions with an underage girl he was coaching.

“Yuen sent text message communications to her, including: sending sexually explicit photos of himself; asking her to perform sexual acts on him and vice versa; and asking her to send him sexually explicit images of herself,” according to a federal complaint and affidavit.

It also claims law enforcement “… recovered sexually explicit images of the victim that she had sent to him upon his request or that he had recorded or captured from a live video chat without her knowledge.”

That same year, 2020, is when Yuen’s name first surfaced publicly in lawsuits stemming from multiple allegations of sexual abuse of high school basketball players he coached at Punahou — more than a decade prior.

There were no criminal charges because the statute of limitations had expired. The civil suit ended with an undisclosed settlement between the plaintiffs and the school last August.

So Yuen was not convicted of a crime. No prison time. No sex offender registry.

Technically, by the letter of the law, he was not guilty. And — it’s important to be clear on this — Yuen still isn’t guilty of anything, because, as we all know, citizens are innocent until proven guilty.

So, it was his right to continue coaching (regardless of whether you, I or anyone else thinks it is not right), assuming anyone would let their kids be near him.

And — although extensive details of the allegations against him are public record — Yuen continued to coach young girls, for the City High club team here on Oahu.

Last year, schools including Punahou issued a warning that Yuen was still out there in the community coaching kids.

Yuen responded to a media inquiry with a statement basically claiming that he’s a “nice” guy.

“There has never been another complaint against me. My coaching is a way to volunteer and give back to the community. I do not understand Punahou’s continued attempts to discredit me and raise doubts about my conduct after such a lengthy period of time.”

Those last four words are interesting.

“Lengthy period of time” won’t help Yuen this time, since the allegations are from just three years ago. Besides that, “There is no current statute of limitations for child pornography at the federal level,” according to FederalCharges.com.

Now, “lengthy period of time” could mean a prison sentence of up to 10 years, if he is found guilty.