HONOLULU (Island News) — Former Punahou girls basketball coach Dwayne Yuen was sentenced to over 33 years in prison for child exploitation and harassment involving 10 victims over the course of nearly 20 years.
Yuen received his prison sentencing of 405 months with life of probation on Thursday, Aug. 14. At the sentencing hearing in Honolulu, four victims gave a letter or spoke in person before the judge gave a ruling.
Former Punahou girls basketball coach Dwayne Yuen was sentenced to over 33 years in prison for child exploitation and harassment involving 10 victims over the course of nearly 20 years. Yuen received his prison sentence of 405 months with life of probation today. At the sentencing hearing in Honolulu, four victims gave a letter or spoke in person before the judge gave a ruling.
Yuen pleaded guilty to the child sex crimes in Dec. 2024. He pleaded guilty to committing crimes against three minors. These include sex trafficking a minor in 2005 and 2006, coercing a minor into sexual activity in 2006 and producing, receiving, and possessing child pornography of a minor in and around 2020 to 2023.
Yuen also pled guilty to harassing victims through anonymous and obscene communications from 2021 to 2023. The FBI arrested him in Feb. 2023 and he has since been detained at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu.
Court pleadings and information in court hearings described the crimes as spanning nearly two decades. During Yuen’s career, he was mostly a youth basketball coach for middle school and high school-aged girls. He coached both private club teams and various private and public school teams on Oahu.
Punahou School provided the following statement:
“Punahou is grateful that justice will be served in this case and we stand with the survivors of abuse. We are committed to student safety and helped lead the creation of the Harm to Students Registry Law, the first of its kind in Hawai‘i. Managed by the DOE, the registry requires all public, private and charter schools to screen potential hires and share information to prevent individuals with histories of harming students from being hired by schools — helping to keep all of Hawai‘i’s keiki safer. We worked closely with the FBI throughout its investigation of Yuen and thank them for their work in protecting the children of our state.”