US embassy employee in Burkina Faso charged with child sexual abuse

In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland allege that Mara met the children, two Burkinabe girls ages 13 and 15, in the Ouagadougou neighborhood where the couple was housed during the woman’s two-year assignment with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The girls were friends with the American family who had previously lived in the Maras’ embassy-assigned home, and also became friends with Mara and his wife shortly after their arrival in August 2022, court documents say.

According to court documents in the case, the girls later told investigators that Mara began abusing them frequently during their second encounter. He sent the girls sexually explicit messages on cell phones he had purchased for them and gave them money and gifts.

Mara is scheduled to appear before a judge in U.S. District Court in Maryland on Friday to decide on his pretrial detention. Maryland prosecutors have requested that Mara be held without bail because, prosecutors wrote, he poses a “serious flight risk and a danger to the community” and there is a “high likelihood that he will attempt to obstruct justice.”

“The defendant’s crimes are as serious as any he can be accused of,” prosecutors wrote in their motion for detention. “They stand out even in the context of child abuse crimes. Mr. Mara repeatedly raped two children over a period of more than a year.”

Neither Mara’s lawyer nor the U.S. State Department or U.S. Development Assistance immediately responded to a request for comment.

Mara is a U.S. citizen and formerly lived in Takoma Park, Maryland, according to the indictment. Because of the location where the abuse occurred, U.S. federal prosecutors have jurisdiction over the case. If convicted, Mara faces a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison, but she could go to prison for life, prosecutors said.

The alleged abuse took place from November 2022 to November 2023, prosecutors said.

According to court documents, American authorities were warned in October 2023 that Mara might be abusing the girls. A security guard assigned to the couple’s embassy residence told investigators from the U.S. Embassy’s Regional Security Office that he and the housekeeper saw Mara bring the girls into the house when Mara’s wife was away. The girls stayed inside with Mara, the security guard said, and sometimes left the house looking distraught and as if they had changed clothes or showered.

In a separate interview, court documents say, the housekeeper told authorities she saw Mara touching one of the girls and saw him alone with them in bedrooms. On Oct. 25, 2023, the day before Mara and his wife left for a long vacation to Vietnam, logs from security personnel at the Maras’ embassy residence showed Mara and one of the girls alone in the house, prosecutors allege in court documents. The housekeeper also said her quarters were disturbed and a condom was in the toilet. The girl later told authorities Mara attacked her after saying, “I want you before I travel,” court documents say.

When Mara returned from his Vietnam vacation, he was approached by investigators at the U.S. Embassy. There, according to court documents filed by prosecutors, he agreed to be interviewed and to allow authorities to search his personal and work cell phones. According to court documents, investigators found sexually explicit WhatsApp messages with one of the girls and eventually discovered an internet search history on Mara’s devices that included sexually explicit material involving other girls in their early teens.

Prosecutors allege that “immediately after” he was questioned by investigators, Mara asked the housekeeper to tell authorities that she was having an affair with him. She said she would not “lie” for him and reported the conversation to embassy security. That same day, court records show, Mara also took one of the girls to his home while his wife was away. He later took the cell phones he had bought for the girls, prosecutors said, which have not yet been found.

U.S. Attorney Erek Barron said in a statement that the case was investigated as part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to combat the sexual abuse and exploitation of children through partnerships between local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Agencies involved in the case included the Diplomatic Security Service’s Office of Special Investigation, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Inspector General and Homeland Security Investigations.