Local woman pleads guilty in DUI case that killed 3 young soccer players in North Miami

A woman with a long string of crashes and traffic tickets pleaded guilty Friday to killing three teenage soccer players, who she mowed down while she was drunk as they were walking to a bus stop in North Miami two years ago to go to a match.

Mariam Coulibaly, who police believe had been drinking heavily beforehand at the club where she worked as a stripper, was convicted of three counts of DUI manslaughter and three counts of vehicular homicide, resulting in the deaths of the three boys.

Coulibaly faces up to 90 years in prison — a maxiumum of 15 years for each of the six second-degree felony offenses — as Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez listened to testimony from family members of the victims after her guilty plea. The judge planned to sentence the defendant Friday afternoon.

During her morning plea hearing, Coulibaly admitted to her crimes in late May 2019, saying she did not want to go to trial because she knew she was responsible for the three boys’ deaths.

“I don’t want to fight with this situation,” Coulibaly, 33, told the judge. “I know what I’ve done.”

Her assistant state public defender, Nora Lewis, said her client’s crime was a “pure tragedy.” But she argued for a “downward departure” under state guidelines and urged the judge to give Coulibaly 27 years in prison.

The horrific crash killed Gedeon Desir, 13, Lens Desir, 15, and Richecarde Dumay, 17, all members of Little Haiti Football Club, a local soccer team for at-risk, low-income youth. Their deaths devastated their families and North Miami’s tight-knit Haitian-American community.

The parents of the three boys said they were all good students and passionate about soccer. They told the judge that they have all been shattered by their losses and left with permanent scars of grief.

“Richecarde was not just a son, but was like a friend to me,” said his father, Antonio Dumay. “He was my son, he was my friend, he was my brother.”

“There wasn’t a day where he didn’t have a smile on his face and a smile on his heart,” said his mother, Ruth Dumay.

Before Coulibaly’s car mowed down the three teenage soccer players, she had been cited for 42 traffic infractions since 2008, a troubling history that also included at least seven previous crashes, records show.

Investigators say Coulibaly — driving with a suspended license — plowed her car at high speed into a sidewalk near a North Miami bus stop early Saturday on May 25, 2019, killing the three teens and sending her to Aventura Hospital with a shattered hip and other injuries.

Coulibaly was arrested on charges of DUI manslaughter after initial toxicology tests showed she was driving drunk. The three teen boys were walking to a bus stop early that Saturday, about 5:22 a.m., on their way to catch a bus to a soccer tournament in Weston. Coulibaly’s SUV, believed to be driving at least 60 miles an hour down Northeast 125th Street at 13th Avenue, veered off the road and ran over the teens.

Investigators believe she had spent part of the night before the crash working at The Body, a Biscayne Boulevard strip club not far from North Miami.

Toxicologists tested vials of her blood seized by police at Aventura Hospital and initial results indicated she was drunk by nearly double the legal limit some four hours after the wreck. Police said Coulibaly smelled of alcohol, and that she admitted to medical staff she had been partying.

Coulibaly’s life appeared to have been in a years-long tailspin. She moved out of her mother’s house in Homestead in 2018 and settled in Miramar, according to a family member. Coulibaly had gotten an office job, said her brother-in-law, who asked not to be named. She also worked as a hairdresser on the side.

In April of 2019, Coulibaly filed for federal bankruptcy, saying she had over $325,000 in debt, most of it stemming from hospital bills and student loans from Everglades University, a private school. Her biggest debt was from Jackson Health System, which filed a lien against her for $218,404 in medical bills stemming from a 2017 car accident.

She also had two criminal cases, one a minor arrest for marijuana in 2013, another for shoplifting from a South Beach Marshall’s. Both cases were dropped.

Most of her trouble revolved around the road.

In Miami-Dade County, she’d received 35 infractions since 2008, for everything from careless driving to failing to stop at a red light to having an expired tag, records show. In Broward, she had seven more infractions.