In a dramatic audio recording played in court Wednesday, a former student of gymnastics coach Oscar Olea described how “he took my virginity”, forcing himself on her after a private lesson at the American Gymsters gym in Key Biscayne.
He was in his mid-20s. She was 16.
It was an intense day in court that started with the judge showing irritation with prosecutors and ending with the state adding four new felony charges against the longtime coach, a fixture in Key Biscayne. They involve two former students, the woman in the audio played Wednesday and a second who says she was 13 when she was first abused.
Speaking through tears in the recording, the older of the two students, talked about how Olea began by playing “games” with her during car trips to private gymnastics lessons in which he would put his hand near her vagina.
She said that during the car rides, she would tell him, “OK, you’re too much,” and he would reassure her, saying “it would be OK.”
She related how he got increasingly aggressive, asking her if she was a virgin and she described how, at the gym in a Key Biscayne strip shopping center, one day he pushed the gym mats and equipment up against the windows to obscure the view.
“And then was like we’re just gonna do it, and he pulled out a condom… I was startled,” she said.
At multiple points in the recording, the tearful former student, interviewed in the past month, became overcome and had to pause.
Oscar Olea coaching at a gym in Kendall.
Olea, 38, remained stoic, looking straight ahead, as the audio played to an otherwise silent courtroom, filled with news media and relatives of the defendant.
Olea began the day facing two criminal counts. By day’s end, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office had added four more felony charges, all of them sex abuse of a child by a person in familial or custodial care, all involving the same victims.
The hearing, to decide whether Olea will remain in jail until trial, will continue Thursday in front of Circuit Judge Alberto Milian.
Over the course of the hearing that began on Monday, the judge has shown irritation with the prosecution over its preparation. For instance, he was disturbed when the state failed to redact the names of the alleged rape victims from a video of a police interview played in court. He has also showed unhappiness upon hearing from the defense that it had been provided audio recordings by the state in which the voices of victims had been altered, something the judge called “unacceptable.”
More than a decade ago, the families of the victims went to Key Biscayne police, one reporting that Olea had raped their by-then 17-year-old daughter, the other holding disturbing love letters between the coach and their 14-year-old. Neither family wanted to press charges at the time.
After the Miami Herald interviewed the two now-adult women, telling their story in January in an article titled “Key Biscayne’s Dark Secret,” the police took action, arresting Olea last week. Key Biscayne police are interesting in talking to anyone else who may have been a victim.