64-Year-Old Woman Accused of Abusing Teen Boy After Little Havana Bike Stop

A 64-year-old woman is facing a felony charge after Miami police say she lured a 17-year-old boy off his bicycle in Little Havana, offered him an unknown white pill and money for oral sex, and abused him inside her home. Diana Rodriguez was arrested at her residence shortly after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday and booked into jail hours later on a charge of sexual activity with a minor.

According to WPLG Local 10, the teenager was riding his bicycle when Rodriguez approached him near Northwest 10th Avenue and West Flagler Street and persuaded him to follow her, per the arrest report. He left his bike behind at a Valero gas station at 999 West Flagler Street before the two got into a car driven by a man police have not identified, according to the report.

The pair then walked to La Esquina del Pan con Bistec, a 24-hour Cuban corner cafe near West Flagler Street and Northwest 12th Avenue that has become a recognizable landmark in East Little Havana, per A Day in Miami. From there, the boy and Rodriguez arrived at her home in the neighborhood, where police say the abuse took place in her living room.

Pill, Cash Offer Detailed in Arrest Report

Police say Rodriguez offered the teenager an unknown white pill before the abuse occurred, according to the arrest report cited by the station. The report also states that Rodriguez offered to perform oral sex on the teen for $10. It remains unclear from the report what the pill was or whether the teen ingested it.

Rodriguez, identified by police as 64 years old, has an arrest record dating back to 1983, the station's report notes. Miami police officers arrested her at her home in Little Havana's West Flagler area, and Miami-Dade County Corrections booked her shortly after 8:10 a.m. at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center near Doral — a 1,300-bed facility that serves as the county's central intake and pre-trial holding site for adult detainees, per Wikipedia. The department overall manages roughly 4,850 detainees on any given day and processes about 45,000 bookings a year across its four facilities, according to Government Navigator.

Bond Set, Case Heads to Circuit Court

Rodriguez appeared in bond court, where a judge set her bond at $7,500 and ordered her to stay away from the victim. The case is set to be heard by Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Ariel Rodriguez, who is not related to the defendant.

Judge Rodriguez took office in Florida's 11th Judicial Circuit in January 2023 after winning election in August 2022, according to Ballotpedia. Before joining the bench, the judge spent more than 15 years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the United States Trustee. The case falls under Division F021 of the Circuit Criminal Division, which sits in Room 217 of the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building in downtown Miami, according to the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida.

What Florida Law Says About the Charge

Under Florida Statute § 794.05, an adult aged 24 or older who engages in sexual activity with a 16- or 17-year-old faces a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, 15 years of probation, a $10,000 fine and mandatory sex offender registration, according to the Brancato Law Firm. Neither the minor's consent nor a defendant's claimed ignorance of the minor's age is a valid legal defense under the statute.

Florida law does carve out a close-in-age exemption allowing adults aged 18 to 23 to engage in consensual activity with 16- or 17-year-olds, but that exemption explicitly ends at age 24, according to Meltzer & Bell. At 64, Rodriguez falls well outside that window under the law regardless of any consent that may be claimed.

A Rare Profile Among Sex Crime Arrests

National crime data compiled from the FBI's Crime Data Explorer shows that about 91.4% of reported sex offense perpetrators in the United States are male, making a case involving a female defendant statistically uncommon, according to The Fitch Law Firm. That same analysis found that individuals aged 11 to 20 account for nearly half of all reported sex offense victims nationwide.

Child abuse prevention group Lauren's Kids notes that female perpetrators make up a larger share, about 38%, specifically in cases where the victims are male youth, compared with broader sex crime statistics. Several questions remain open in Rodriguez's case, including the identity of the man who police say drove the car the teen and Rodriguez rode in, and whether he could face any criminal liability of his own.