‘I want to be your BF’ — a Broward cheerleaders’ coach charged with enticing a girl he met when she was 11

Federal prosecutors say a Broward County cheerleading coach told a teen girl that he would leave his wife for her and “I sleep and dream of you ... and I am committed to what we are doing.”

Details of the government’s case against 38year-old Raul Albites, charged with enticement of a minor, were laid out in an April 25 detention hearing. U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia O. Valle ruled the next day that Albites is enough of a danger to the public that he should be held without bond.

The Broward County

Jail has housed Albites since he turned himself in to Davie police on April 19.

Valle’s detention order says prosecutors put forth that Albites was the “owner, operator and head coach at a Broward Elite Gym, located in Davie.” But online state records for now-closed Broward Elite All-Stars in Davie don’t list Albites as an officer or agent during its 2012-2020 existence. State records do list Albites

as an agent for Prime Athletics Cheer in Fort Lauderdale from August 2020 through March

2021.

“The evidence against [Albites] is substantial,” Valle wrote.

A VOW TO LEAVE WIFE

What follows are allegations in the detention order from the evidence and police testimony presented at the detention hearing:

Albites met the girl when she began cheerleading training at Broward Elite at age 11.

“Initially, Defendant and the minor victim had a ‘father-daughter’ relationship, but the relationship subsequently progressed into inappropriate texting and FaceTiming on an almost daily basis,” the detention order said. That included Albites telling the now-teenage girl he loved her and “that he would leave his wife when the minor victim turned 18 so they could get married.”

Albites texted the girl, “I want to be your BF ... I see you as my girl ... I [expletive] tell you how I feel regardless of consequences . . . I have everything to lose to be with you ... Yes I can’t go out and hang out with you ... Yes I can’t tell your parents or take you out or properly tell anyone ... I sleep and dream of you . . . and I am committed to what we are doing.”

Albites’ conduct “led the minor victim to believe they were in a romantic relationship.”

After denying that to police originally, the detention order says, the girl admitted in July 2020 that Albites tried to cajole her into a sexual relationship via text, FaceTime and in-person conversation. She told police he touched her inappropriately over her bra and clothes; sent her a FaceTime photo of his penis; and molested her Aug. 14, 2020.

MOTHER SEES KISS

The next day, the girl and her mother helped Albites and his wife move out of Broward Elite. While doing so, the order says, the mother caught

Albites “embracing and kissing ... behind the gym near a trash dumpster.”

Albites played it off as a misunderstanding, that what the mother saw was the girl “just kissing him on the cheek.” But the mother went to the girl’s phone and found text messages and FaceTime messages that backed up what she knew she saw, including a text message from Albites that said, “You seem comfortable with my hand there.”

The order said the mother saved text messages from Albites admitting that he’d “lost his perspective” and “[had] messed up and crossed the line.”