SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — Ten days after being suspended from North Kingstown High School after complaints about his “naked fat tests,” celebrated basketball coach Aaron Thomas faced questions from local police detectives.
Thomas denied that any student was naked during the tests, according to police video of the Feb. 22, 2021, interview, which prosecutors showed jurors on Thursday in Washington County Superior Court, where Thomas is on trial.
He is charged with second-degree child molestation and second-degree sexual assault of two former athletes.
During the interview with detectives, Thomas said he had developed his fat-testing program 20 years ago, but struggled and stammered at times to answer questions about where he exactly measured the teens’ bodies.
They are among numerous other former student-athletes who have come forward with complaints that Thomas inappropriately touched their nude bodies near their groins under the auspices of his self-designed “fat tests.”
Jurors appeared to be intent as they watched the video and read along with a transcript, at times shaking their heads as they listened to Thomas answering questions about his tests.
Midway through the interview, one detective said to Thomas, “We talked to a bunch of different kids, and their description of the program and your description is slightly off. I’m trying to figure out why they were asked to remove their clothing, why would a lot of them [be] saying they were down to their underwear or naked?”
Several former student-athletes have told the jury that Thomas conducted the tests with them alone in his office, with the question “Are you shy or not shy?”
Those who weren’t “shy” said they would strip, and Thomas would examine their bodies, with his fingers and calipers, including their inner thighs and areas near their groins, scrotums, and buttocks. Some have said that Thomas said he was performing a “puberty check” or “hernia check.” One testified on Tuesday that Thomas became visibly aroused during the test.
In the video, when North Kingstown Detective Christopher Mulligan asked Thomas about “shy or not shy,” the coach appeared not to know what he meant, and gave a rambling answer about testing. “Why would they come back [to be tested] if they were uncomfortable?” Thomas said.
Thomas said the teens could roll up their shorts or pull them down so he could take measurements of their hip area. A detective asked about his “pinches” on the hip and thigh, and whether any were near the scrotum. Thomas said he tested near the teens’ adductor muscles, “just grab a pinch.”
The detectives asked Thomas what he would say to students who think they have a hernia. Thomas said he’d tell them to go to a doctor. “Ultimately a doctor is going to handle a hernia, not me.”
Thomas, who’d been a basketball coach for 30 years, told the detectives that the fat testing was his idea to make kids stronger. He said it involved pinching and measuring their bodies for fat, and measuring their flexibility, and said he gave the teens the spreadsheets of their measurements.
Thomas estimated hundreds of teen boys went through his program. He told detectives he didn’t submit any plan to the school department about his testing program, but claimed it wasn’t a secret.
However, according to testimony from the high school’s former principal, the former superintendent, the former athletic director, and a former fellow coach, no one had any idea about what Thomas was doing with the teenage boys in his office.
Former principal Barbara Morse testified Thursday that she was “shocked and concerned” when she was told about the complaint made against Thomas.
That was the first time she’d learned about his “body fat tests” on the teenage boys.
Morse, who was previously assistant principal and head of the math department, testified that she always told teachers not to be alone with students.
“What’s the policy for a teacher alone with a naked student?” asked special assistant attorney general Megan Thomson.
“Absolutely not!” Morse responded.
Kevin Gormley, a longtime teacher and coach, testified on Thursday that he knew Thomas had some athletic testing program, but he didn’t know anything about it and never witnessed it. He testified that he never knew the teens were naked.
Gormley testified that he had been friendly with Thomas through their years of coaching, and when he learned the head coach was suspended, he thought it involved a disgruntled parent.
Thomas wasn’t allowed to communicate with students or teachers while he was suspended, but he emailed Gormley with advice on coaching the team, Gormley testified.
Then, one evening in April 2021, two former students told Gormley about their experiences with Thomas’ tests. Gormley wasn’t allowed to tell the jury what they said.
After that conversation with the students, Gormley said he stopped communicating with Thomas, who was asking him for job references. “I was not ever going to write him a reference letter or speak to him again,” Gormley testified.
Finally, after being contacted again, Gormley emailed Thomas in June 2021: “In light of new information I received over the past few months from former players, I will not be able to give you a reference.”
Gormley didn’t look at Thomas as he testified, and he avoided Thomas’ gaze as he left the courtroom.
When Thomas spoke to the detectives, he said he did not have access to the spreadsheets and records with details about the students he had tested.
Michael Waterman, the former IT director for North Kingstown, testified that he had to retrieve two laptops and a cellphone from Thomas a few weeks after he was suspended.
Waterman said he had looked at the recently opened files on Thomas’ computer in the office. There were some he was unable to open, Waterman testified.
He also noted that, along with the school’s own surveillance cameras, which were installed as part of a safety plan in 2017, Thomas had his own surveillance cameras that supplied live video of his classroom and directly outside his office.
The video feed appeared on a monitor inside Thomas’ office, where he conducted the tests on the boys.
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