Child Sex Abuse Charges Filed Against U.S. Embassy Employee From Prince George's: Official

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — A U.S. Embassy diplomat stationed in West Africa has been charged in connection to the sexual abuse of two children.

Fode Sitafa Mara, 39, faces five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, one count of coercion and enticement and one count of obstruction of justice. The charges say the abuse happened in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

The seven-count indictment alleges that Mara, who holds a diplomatic status and was employed at the U.S. Embassy-Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, befriended a family that included two children. Court documents state that Mara groomed, coerced and sexually abused the two children who were 13 and 15 years old at the time of the abuse. The sexual abuse and rape are believed to have happened at the Mara family’s embassy-assigned residence over a period of a year.

According to Stars and Stripes, Mara also is the husband of a U.S. diplomat. They shared the home in Ouagadougou, previously living in Takoma Park, and his wife is in West Africa on a two-year assignment for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland has asked that Mara be held without bond because, prosecutors wrote, he is a “serious risk of flight and danger to the community” and there is a “high likelihood he will attempt to obstruct justice.”

“The defendant’s crimes are as serious as any that can be alleged,” prosecutors wrote in their motion arguing for his detainment. “They stand out even in the context of child exploitation offenses. Mr. Mara repeatedly forcibly raped two children over the course of more than a year."

If convicted, Mara faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 30 years’ incarceration and a maximum of life in federal prison for the charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor.