Fode Sitafa Mara, 41, a former US Embassy employee in Burkina Faso, has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of repeatedly raping two teenage girls — aged 13 and 15 — by falsely promising to help their terminally ill mother.
A former US Embassy employee has been sentenced to life in prison for repeatedly raping two teenage girls while posted in Burkina Faso.
Fode Sitafa Mara, 41, an American citizen, sexually assaulted the 13 and 15-year-old victims over a year between 2022 and 2023, prosecutors said. Living in taxpayer-funded housing near the girls’ waterless slum in Ouagadougou, Mara exploited their desperation, telling them he would only help their critically ill mother if they gave him something in return.
Mara gave the girls a phone to summon them when his wife was away, and later attempted to pressure his housekeeper into lying to investigators. A jury convicted him in October of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, attempted coercion and enticement, and attempted obstruction of justice. Maryland federal Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced him Thursday. “The defendant, while representing the US government abroad, violently sexually abused two acutely vulnerable child victims,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said. “His crimes were reprehensible.”