SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — On his last day testifying in his own criminal trial, former high school basketball coach Aaron Thomas was questioned Thursday by the prosecution and the defense about his lies about his “naked fat tests” of teen male athletes.
Thomas has admitted this week that he lied to then-North Kingstown Superintendent Phil Auger in 2018 and continued doing private tests with naked boys. He admitted that he lied to North Kingstown detectives after getting suspended from the school in 2021. Both times, he denied that student-athletes were naked and alone with him, while he pinched and measured their upper thighs “for balance,” and pressed near their groins for “groin strains.”
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But the boys had been naked, he said, at least most of the 600 athletes he estimated had gone through his self-designed fat-testing and body-composition-flexibility testing over 28 years.
The only time that Thomas showed emotion during his testimony this week was when his lawyer John Calcagni III asked him onThursday why anyone should believe him now.
Thomas said that at the time he lied, he was afraid he’d lose his job. “Today is different,” Thomas said, becoming choked up. “I’m under oath. All the things I was trying to save are gone. I don’t teach. I don’t coach. I lost my reputation.”
Assistant Attorney General Timothy Healy countered that Thomas still had something to lose.
“You admitted you weren’t completely truthful in those situations where your back is up against the wall, bad things were going to happen…” Healy said.
“I’d lose my job,” Thomas said.
“Your back is against the wall here,” Healy said.
Thomas agreed.
He is charged with second-degree child molestation and second-degree sexual assault, both stemming from former student-athletes who said Thomas conducted “naked fat tests” on them. The two young men were among 10 former athletes who testified for the prosecution about their experiences; four others testified for the defense.
The process they each went through was similar: Each was alone with Thomas in his office, where he asked them if they were “shy or not shy?” to see if they would remove their underwear. Thomas has testified that their nudity made it easier for him to access areas near their groin for his self-designed tests.
Thomas said he was not trained or certified in any of the tests he conducted, saying he found information online or in books. He did not provide any references that showed the groin was a valid site for such testing. In fact, an expert in body composition has already testified that it wasn’t, and there was no need for anyone to be naked. The expert, Dr. Laurie Milliken, the co-founder of the Global Health and Body Composition Institute and an associate professor at UMass Boston, is expected to be called again Friday as a rebuttal witness.
While most of the former student-athletes have said they were uncomfortable and embarrassed during the tests, they’ve also said that Thomas never said anything sexual or made advances.
Calcagni asked Thomas if he had instilled a sense of secrecy among the teens. He said he hadn’t, and knew the boys were comparing their body fat.
Calcagni asked if any faculty member had confronted him about the students being naked. “No,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t have concealed it. I would have talked to the faculty member.”
However, Thomas testified that he did conceal it when he was questioned by Auger in a September 2018 meeting that included the principal and athletic director.
Thomas said Auger had a complaint from a former student-athlete who said he had been in a towel during the fat test, but was “not inappropriately touched.”
Thomas said that phrase stuck in his mind.
Thomas testified Auger also wrote in an email documenting the meeting that Thomas told him he had “done these measurements in your office to have access to your computer and that at no time was any student naked while alone with you as these measurements were taken.”
Thomas admitted that he had lied.
“At the time, my job would have been on the line, with everything going on in this world, with Larry Nassar” — the gymnastics doctor convicted of sexually abusing female athletes under the guise of medical treatment — “there would have been an investigation,” Thomas said.
“You knew it was wrong,” Healy said.
“In what sense?” Thomas asked.
“In the sense of you being alone with a naked boy,” Healy said, his voice rising.
“At the time, looking back on it, no,” Thomas said.
“You knew at the time!” Healy shouted, prompting Judge Melanie Wilk Thunberg to ask him not to yell in her courtroom.
Thomas said he continued testing teen boys alone, even when he told Auger in 2018 that he would stop, and when the school purchased a testing machine for the weight room and the athletic director drew up a protocol requiring two adults to be present.
Thomas said that four or five students asked him to continue his private testing. He thought the machine’s readings were inaccurate.
Thomas said he attempted to have chaperones, naming the athletic director, who has since died, but didn’t remember if he’d asked the weight-training coach. He said they were busy. Although the athletic trainer was at the school, Thomas also dismissed her as probably being busy.
Thomas testified that he didn’t tell them that the students were naked.
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