SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — A lawyer for Aaron Thomas, the once-celebrated North Kingstown High basketball coach, told a jury Monday that the way Thomas performed his self-designed “naked fat tests” on teen boys over 28 years was not a crime.
“The state’s case is very strong on negative optics, but I would suggest to you that the state’s case is weak on actual evidence of criminal conduct,” defense lawyer John Calcagni III said in his closing remarks on Monday. “The state relied on two things: the athletes were naked and Coach Thomas lied. Naked, naked, naked. Lied, lied, lied.”
Follow the latest in the criminal trial of Aaron Thomas
The prosecution will present closing arguments on Tuesday.
Thomas is charged with second-degree child molestation, based on a player who alleged he was tested when he was 13, in 2001 to early 2002; and second-degree sexual assault, from a player who was tested between September 2019 and June 30, 2020.
The jury must determine without a reasonable doubt that Thomas touched the inner thighs and groins of the teen athletes for sexual gratification or arousal. For the child molestation charge, the jury must also find that the teen was under 14 years old.
If convicted, Thomas faces between three and 15 years in prison for second-degree sexual assault, and between six to 30 years in prison for second-degree child molestation.
Judge Melanie Wilk Thunberg instructed the jury on Monday that if they find Thomas not guilty of sexual assault, they can consider a lesser charge of misdemeanor battery.
Since the opening statements on April 7 in the criminal trial in Washington County Superior Court, the jury heard from 25 witnesses and considered more than 170 exhibits. Medical and body-composition experts, school officials, police, and 10 former athletes testified for the prosecution. Thomas and four former student-athletes testified for the defense.
Calcagni said Monday there is no dispute that most of the 600 boys who went through Thomas’s self-designed fat-testing program were naked and alone with the coach. He said there is no dispute that Thomas invited them to take off their underwear with the now-notorious phrase: “Are you shy or not shy?”
“It’s not in dispute that what Coach Thomas did is inappropriate … but as Judge Thunberg made clear to you, it’s not about impropriety,” Calcagni said.
He offered jurors 10 reasons why they should acquit Thomas, including: no evidence that Thomas said or did anything indicating sexual gratification; nudity was voluntary; and the “real and true purpose” of Thomas touching the inner thighs and groin areas of the naked boys was for purposes of his self-designed tests.
“The case comes down to what’s in Aaron Thomas’s mind,” Calcagni said.
Calcagni said that Thomas lied – telling the superintendent in 2018, and the police in 2021 that the teens weren’t naked – because he was “trying to save his job and his identity.” Thomas testified that he continued testing athletes alone, even after the superintendent told him to stop.
Calcagni described Thomas as a coach who was committed to making his athletes better players, so he “did his own research” on various fat-testing formulas and “trigger-point” tests, to prevent groin injuries.
“This entire case has been labeled by the media as the fat-testing scandal,” Calcagni said. “It was another area that Aaron Thomas was measuring, and equated with athletic performance.”
A body-composition expert for the prosecution had testified about the errors in Thomas’s tests and said there was no reason for the students to be naked. The current athletic trainer for North Kingstown High School said he wouldn’t press on any part of an athlete’s body unless there was a complaint of injury.
Calcagni acknowledged the expert testimony in his closing remarks Monday. “Just because Aaron Thomas didn’t administer the program [correctly] … and was using formulas incorrectly or out of date doesn’t make what he did a crime,” he said.
Calcagni attacked the credibility of the former student-athletes who’ve testified against Thomas, criticizing some who are involved in a civil lawsuit against North Kingstown. Some of the messages from a group chat involving five former players were shown to the jury.
“These guys are working together to ruin his [expletive] life, to work together to get money from the town of North Kingstown,” Calcagni said. “And when money is on the line, that becomes a motivating factor for people, sometimes to stretching the truth, and sometimes not to tell the truth at all.”
Calcagni sought to discredit the testimony from the two former athletes behind the two charges. The judge ordered the media not to identify the former students who’ve testified.
Thomas testified that he had logged the results of the tests into spreadsheets for the student-athletes. Calcagni said that the results for the former student-athlete who said he was 13 when Thomas first tested him showed that he was actually 14 and one month old. (The former athlete vociferously disputed it.)
Calcagni raised the former athlete’s mental health struggles, starting when he was a senior in high school, as a reason to doubt his testimony. He said the former athlete made inconsistent statements about his memories from the testing in the early 2000s.
The former athlete testified that “it took him decades to process and figure this out,” Calcagni said. “I said to myself, ‘Process what?’ ”
He also disputed the testimony from the former student athlete whose accusation led to the charge of second-degree sexual assault, who said he developed an erection and also saw Thomas with an erection.
Calcagni said Thomas testified that he didn’t see any of the teens get an erection, and he cast doubt on what the former player allegedly saw.
“Having a bulge in a man’s pants … doesn’t mean you have an erection,” Calcagni said. “Men know from experience how the cloth bunches in that area.”
Calcagni noted that the prosecutors posted the yearbook photos of the 10 former students when they testified, showing what they looked like when Thomas first began testing them. Some of the men became emotional when they saw their old photos.
Calcagni said those photos were intended by the prosecution to play on jurors’ sympathies. He urged jurors to look at what Thomas has lost since the “naked fat test” allegations became public in 2021.
“I suggest to you justice was served years ago,” Calcagni said. “He lost his job, he’ll never teach or coach again, and in his own words, his reputation has been destroyed.”
Comment count: