A newly filed civil lawsuit claims a female student-athlete at North Kingstown High School alerted a guidance counselor about former boys basketball coach Aaron Thomas's private body fat testing in 2005, sixteen years before Thomas resigned from the district. The allegation, filed by attorney Tim Conlon on behalf of alleged victims, pushes back the known timeline of institutional awareness about Thomas's conduct by more than a decade.
Conlon, who represents victims in the civil litigation against former school administrators, said the account indicates district officials were alerted decades before the allegations were formally investigated, according to WJAR. Thomas, a former boys basketball coach at North Kingstown High School, resigned from the district in 2021 after a student-athlete reported him to the superintendent that year. He has admitted that roughly 600 boys underwent one-on-one physical examinations in a private setting over his 30-year career at the school, according to AP News.
A Timeline Stretching Back Two Decades
The 2005 complaint described in the new lawsuit predates by thirteen years an earlier known warning. School administrators officially warned Thomas about the body fat tests in 2018 after a student came forward. Thomas admitted creating the tests and performing them on about 600 students. That gap between warning and resignation has become central to the civil case against the district.
McGuirl was hired in 2021 to conduct a review, which was issued in 2022. A civil investigation also followed.
Criminal Case Ended in Acquittal on Felony Counts
In May 2025, a Washington County Superior Court jury acquitted Thomas of felony second-degree sexual assault and child molestation charges but convicted him on two misdemeanor counts of simple battery tied to the body fat tests. The body fat tests were at issue in the trial.
Thomas was sentenced in September 2025 to one year of probation on the two misdemeanor battery counts and received no prison time.
The alleged 2005 warning could place staff awareness roughly a decade before the 2018 administrative warning the district has previously acknowledged.
