Flight attendant jailed after teenage girl finds phone taped to plane toilet
Estes Carter Thompson III has been jailed for 18 years by a Boston court after a 14-year-old girl discovered a phone crudely taped to the underside of the American Airlines plane toilet seat
A pervert has been jailed after taping his phone to the lid of an airplane toilet to film young girls.
American Airlines attendant Estes Carter Thompson III pleaded guilty earlier this year after he was found to have recorded five underage girls over nine months working with the airline.
He was also found with a collection of AI-generated images of child sexual abuse.
As he was sent down for 18-and-a-half years on Wednesday, the 37-year-old apologised, branding his actions "selfish, perverse and wrong".
District judge Julia Kobick said his filming of the children had stolen their innocence, calling his behaviour "appalling".
In a sentencing memorandum seen by Boston.com, federal prosecutors said he had been “recording videos of the children’s bodies in one of their most private moments, and then storing, editing, and revisiting those videos, all for his own sexual gratification."
He “robbed five young girls of their innocence and belief in the goodness of the world and the people they would encounter in it, instead leaving them with fear, mistrust, insecurity, and sadness,” prosecutors said.
In September 2023, he was finally rumbled after escorting a 14-year-old to the toilet. While doing so, he asked to enter before her so he could wash his hands - and told her the toilet seat was not working.
The girl inspected the underside of the seat and found an iPhone hidden crudely under some red stickers which said "seat broken".
With her own phone, the girl took photos of the hidden device and showed them to her parents when she got back to her seat.
Thompson was confronted by the girl's father, leading him to hide in the bathroom for the rest of the flight. While hiding in the cubicle, he deleted all of the data from his phone.
But police trawled his iCloud data and found additional recordings of four other girls aged seven, nine, 11 and 14. He also had a video of an unaccompanied nine-year-old sleeping in her seat. In his suitcase, they discovered more red stickers like those found on the toilet seat.
In March, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.
He is being sent to FMC Butner in North Carolina, where he is expected to undergo sex offender treatment.
After his initial sentence, he will have to serve a further five under supervised release.
American Airlines immediately sacked Thompson. However, a civil lawsuit has been launched against the company by one of the victims' families.
Texas-based law firm Lewis & Llewellyn, which is representing the family, said Thompson's ability to exploit his position was "deeply troubling", adding: “American Airlines owes these families — and the public — answers and meaningful reforms to ensure this can never happen again."