Lawyer for former North Kingstown student athletes files legal action over ‘body fat’ test records taken by Aaron Thomas

The former coach’s lawyer says the documents have already been returned to the North Kingstown School department

North Kingstown High School basketball coach Aaron Thomas during a game. He has been accused of conducting inappropriate “body fat tests.”Paul J. Spetrini/The Independent Newspaper

PROVIDENCE — A lawyer for former North Kingstown High School athletes has filed a court action over former high school basketball coach Aaron Thomas’ removal of records from the school.

John MacDonald, Thomas’ lawyer, confirmed that a lawyer for the former student athletes, Timothy Conlon, had filed a writ of replevin — a type of legal action that seeks to have someone return something that belongs to someone else.

But, MacDonald said, the records in question have already been returned to the North Kingstown School Department, at the request of a laywer for the North Kingstown schools, who said they were the department’s property. MacDonald said he returned them himself, but declined to say when.

In an earlier interview, MacDonald told the Globe that Thomas had “300 signed consent forms spanning 10+ years” signed by teen male athletes and their parents allowing Thomas to perform body-composition tests. He acknowledged that Thomas took the forms when he resigned from North Kingstown High School in June.

“I’m glad he did,” MacDonald told the Globe on Nov. 11. “He thought he might need them, because he was under investigation.”

The legal action is the first formal step in what could be a lengthy legal battle after revelations that Thomas had conducted naked “body fat tests” on students for years while he was a high school basketball coach in North Kingstown.

“We are in the process of preparing an appropriate report to be filed with the court regarding the status of records that, per (Thomas’) admission, were removed from the school department, and which, inasmuch as those are records regarding students, should never have left the school,” Conlon said Wednesday.

Thomas was served Wednesday, MacDonald said. It’s on for court on Dec. 3 in Washington County, he said. He declined to comment further.

Though the Attorney General’s office is investigating allegations that Thomas for years performed “fat tests” on student-athletes, asking some male students to strip naked while he used skinfold calipers to manipulate various parts of their bodies, Thomas has not been charged with a crime, and MacDonald said he did nothing illegal. He has cited the “weight testing agreement” consent forms in defending Thomas, although they do not mention nudity.