Cuban ex-volleyball player training at a school in Miami guilty of inappropriate conduct with students

A former Cuban volleyball player who worked as a coach at a high school in Miami has been found guilty of inappropriate conduct with two students.

Yuniesky Ramírez-Martínez, 39, was tried by a Miami-Dade court, which on Thursday found him guilty of committing four offenses against two of his students from Downtown Doral Charter Upper School.

The Doral Police Department stated that its duty was to protect teenagers as a part-time security monitor and volleyball coach, but instead, it sexually exploited them.

What were the crimes about?

Ramírez Martínez recorded a student while she was having sex with her boyfriend and then threatened to show the video to sexually harass her.

On Valentine's Day 2023, he approached two 16-year-old students, a girl and a boy, and suggested using his security access card to give them privacy.

He took them to a private place to "do whatever they wanted," a phrase that for the young people meant having sex. He told them they could "do it" while he waited in another room. However, that room had two windows, and what he did was enter the adjoining one and film them with his phone.

According to the arrest warrant, surveillance footage captured him recording the teenagers while they were engaging in sexual activity in the television production studio of the center.

When the couple finished, the Cuban approached them, raised his thumb, and fist-bumped the boy.

The next day, he told the girl that he had seen what she did and that if she didn't do it to him as well, he would expose the act to her boyfriend.

She refused, but he kept insisting, until on February 17 she reported him to the school administration.

The director, Kim Ortiz, called the Doral Police. A statement reported that the Cuban was fired as soon as the events became known.

The police reported that the Cuban only worked at the school for a couple of months as a security monitor and part-time sports coach.

It was not revealed what he did with the video he recorded of the young people.

"Extremely dangerous, this is someone who victimizes students, who takes advantage of them, exploiting students who are at a unique stage in their hormonal lives, dealing with the pressures of social media, the pressures of various relationships, and you are an authority figure in the school," said Doral Police Chief, Edwin López, to NBC Miami.

"You are supposed to train, you are supposed to be a mentor, you are supposed to guide these young men and women to the next phase of their lives, and you are taking advantage of them. For us, there is nothing worse than that," he emphasized.

Trial and sentence

According to the report from Local 10, the jurors took about an hour and a half to reach their verdict.

The Cuban was found guilty of offenses against students by an authority figure, including two charges of encouraging conduct by a child and voyeurism through video in a school.

Instead, he was acquitted of the charges of soliciting a minor for illegal conduct, lewd and obscene contact with certain minors, and distributing obscene material to a minor.

The sentence against him will be announced on August 20 at 9:00 am.

Born in Guantánamo in 1986, Ramírez Martínez is a former top-level beach volleyball player from Cuba, who won two gold medals, one silver medal, and two bronze medals in the Beach Volleyball Circuit of the North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORCECA), according to the Beach Volleyball Database.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Case of the Cuban Ex-Volleyball Player in Miami