A World Bank consultant, former Australian diplomat, and father of three is being held without bond and charged with sexually abusing three of his children’s playmates who lived in his Northwest Washington, DC, neighborhood.
Thomas Mahony, 42, was arrested in July and accused of sexually abusing two 7-year-old girls and one 8-year-old boy.
“Mahony, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffed,” appeared in D.C. Superior Court Thursday where he failed to get bond as he was considered a “significant flight risk,” according to Washington Post coverage of the case.
According to the Post:
The arrest has shocked the D.C. youth swimming community, where he was known as a proud father who regularly volunteered to time races or take team photos. Two of the swim teams Mahony had volunteered with, All Star Aquatics and MVP Dolphins, sent emails to families asking them to contact police with additional information.
Court records cited by the newspaper revealed that police wanted to arrest Mahoney as far back as November 2023 when he allegedly assaulted one of the girls while she on a playdate with his children.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to prosecute due to “consideration of the government’s burden of beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the Post’s examination of the records.
Now prosecutors have charged Mahony with two counts of first-degree child sexual abuse and one count of second-degree child sexual abuse stemming from incidents from February 2023 to July 13, 2025.
Under D.C. law, first-degree abuse involves a sexual act while second-degree abuse involves sexual contact that can occur over or under clothing.
All three minors reportedly told authorities that they had been at Mahony’s house having fun with his children doing typical activities like “watching a movie, playing video games, or pretending to run a Target store” when the abuse occurred.
In a court filing this week, prosecutors revealed that more charges could be on the way.
The mother of two of the children told the Post she once considered Mahony “the hero of the community.” Her family first got to know him “in 2023 as the involved father and volunteer photographer at events hosted by their children’s elementary school.”
“The only thing you can do is just cry,” she said. “I feel like I failed as a mother by trusting this person.”
Prosecutors worked to keep Mahony jailed ahead of his Thursday hearing. They expressed concern that the Australian national would flee the United States, citing his relationship with the Australian Embassy. Even if he surrendered his passport, he could obtain another there, they argued.
In a motion opposing Mahony’s release, prosecutors also said his “wife plans to move to Japan, then Australia in the coming weeks.” They reported Mahony’s parents “have been packing up his apartment.”
A source at the World Bank told the Post that Mahony’s employment was terminated as soon as the bank learned of his arrest.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse in recent U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
