NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) — A former North Kingstown High School student is suing town and school officials, accusing them of showing “callous indifference” when they negligently failed to protect him from a former coach’s “naked fat test” program .

The unnamed student’s attorney, Tim Conlon, outlined in vivid detail the method in which former high school basketball coach Aaron Thomas began targeting his client at 13 years old before eventually having him get completely undressed and alone behind closed door for physical examinations Conlon described as a “sham.”

This all happened during a time when Conlon alleged the district knew of Thomas’s behavior yet failed to warn students or prevent it from happening in any reasonable way.

“Steeped in a culture that prioritized loyalty to the school and athletic success over the safety of children, defendants marginalized complaining parents, and students were not only not warned about the utter lack of professional boundaries, but swept into ‘going along’ with practices that were grossly inconsistent with appropriate professional standards, yet passed off as routine,” Conlon wrote.

The civil lawsuit filed Tuesday — which is the third of its kind connected to this scandal — has been filed separately from an ongoing criminal case against Thomas . The former coach and teacher — who conducted the naked fat tests on hundreds of former students since at least the mid-1990s — has pleaded not guilty to second-degree child molestation and second-degree sexual assault. His criminal case is currently awaiting trial.

As Target 12 first reported in 2021 , several former students accused Thomas of regularly getting them alone behind closed doors and directing them to get undressed to their underwear. At that point, they said Thomas would ask them if they were “shy or not shy,” a phrase former students said became commonly known among classmates and teammates.

If students told Thomas they were “not shy,” they said he would direct them to get completely undressed before conducting a series of athletic tests and body-fat measurements.

In the civil lawsuit, the former student and his parents accused Thomas of also conducting a so-called “puberty test,” which involved the coach pressing his thumb on one side of the student’s groin at the junction of his testicles.

During at least one of the tests, the student alleged Thomas became “visibly aroused.”

The student was asked by Thomas “to remove his clothing and sit with his back against the wall of Thomas’s office, naked, with his legs spread out, and to stand up and touch his toes while defendant Thomas stood behind him gripping” the student, Conlon wrote.

The former student has accused the town and school district of depriving him of his legal rights, along with committing negligence and consortium. He’s seeking damages, costs, attorney fees and interest. No dollar amount was included in the lawsuit.

The defendants named in the lawsuit comprise town officials and city council members, along with former school athletic employees, teachers and administrators. Thomas is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, despite being named throughout the allegations.

Ralph Mollis, town manager for North Kingstown, declined to comment citing the ongoing case.

Conlon alleged many of the defendants knew about the testing regimen since as early as 2017, but they never took the issue seriously until a former student emailed the school in early 2021.

“When misconduct of educators rose to a level such that it came to the attention of others, NKSD either ignored or silenced those raising questions, or dealt with the concerns ‘informally,’ in manners that effectively covered for the misbehavior, thereby effectively licensing it,” Conlon wrote.

Target 12 has interviewed former students who said this testing happened to them and others beginning in the mid-1990s. After quietly leaving North Kingstown High School in the summer of 2021, Thomas was hired at a Catholic school in a nearby town.

After Target 12 reached out to the school about the allegations that fall, administrators said they were never aware of the scandal at North Kingstown, and they quickly fired Thomas .

R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha subsequently opened a criminal investigation into the allegations and criminally charged Thomas the following summer. The scandal also spurred a federal civil rights investigation, along with separate investigations by both the town and school district.

At least one former student has testified before lawmakers, calling on them to extend the statute of limitations tied to sexual assault . He argued that several former students affected by Thomas’s actions will never see their day in court because most of them underwent the testing outside of the three-year statute of limitations tied to the state’s second-degree sexual assault law.

For the former student who filed the lawsuit, Conlon highlighted that it’s not easy for victims of sexual assault to come forward quickly. He said the consequences, however, are long-term.

“His embarrassment and shame about the foregoing was such that he could not disclose these events to his parents or his siblings for years,” Conlon wrote.

Eli Sherman ( esherman@wpri.com ) is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and on Facebook .

Tim White ( twhite@wpri.com ) is Target 12 managing editor and chief investigative reporter and host of Newsmakers for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook .

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Daily Roundup

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com.