An American Airlines flight attendant has been accused of secretly recording underage passengers while they were using the airplane bathrooms, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said Thursday.
Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is accused of recording five girls in multiple incidents between January 2023 and September 2023. An investigation began after an incident on Sept. 2, when a 14-year-old passenger reported that she had found an iPhone taped to the backside of the toilet lid while she was using the bathroom on a flight from Boston to Charlotte.
Attorney Paul T. Llewellyn previously told NBC10 Boston that he was representing the family involved.
"It is shocking that a sexual predator could brazenly prey on a minor while she used the bathroom on a flight.," Llewellyn said in a statement earlier this year. Llewellyn said it happened aboard American Airlines flight 1441 from Charlotte to Boston on Sept. 2. The family has filed a lawsuit.
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According to court documents, the victim told investigators that she had been waiting for the bathroom in the main cabin when she was approached by Thompson, who offered to let her use the first-class lavatory. Before she entered, the victim said Thompson went in to allegedly wash his hands.
While using the bathroom, the victim saw stickers on the underside of the toilet seat that read “INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT,” “REMOVE FROM SERVICE,” and “SEAT BROKEN.” Beneath those stickers, she found the phone. After she spotted the device, she took pictures of it on her own phone to show her parents. The victim told investigators that as soon as she left the lavatory, Thompson entered it.
A witness who used the bathroom soon after told investigators that he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary and did not see any red stickers on the toilet seat.
The girl told her parents what she found and they reported it to other flight attendants and the captain, who reported it to authorities on the ground. Her father also confronted Thompson, who went back into the bathroom, court documents state.
Thompson was met by law enforcement at Boston Logan Airport when the plane landed. Investigators said it seemed Thompson's phone had been reset to factory settings, but a search of his suitcase turned up stickers similar to the ones described by the victim. Investigators also found other recordings on Thompson's iCloud account. The victims in the recordings were 7, 9, 11and 14 years old. There were also photos of a 9-year-old unaccompanied minor who took one of Thompson's flights, prosecutors say. Those photos included close-ups and photos of the victim sleeping.
Investigators also found AI-generated images of child sex abuse.
“The deeply disturbing conduct alleged here is something no parent or child should ever have to worry about when they travel. Mr. Thompson allegedly used his position to prey on and surreptitiously record innocent children, including unaccompanied minors, while in a vulnerable state aboard flights he was working,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy in a media release.
American Airlines said at the time of the Sept. 2 incident that Thompson was "withheld from service" immediately after the allegations came to light and has not worked since.
"We take these allegations very seriously. They don’t reflect our airline or our core mission of caring for people. We have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation as there is nothing more important than the safety and security of our customers and team," the company said in a statement Thursday.
The families of all of the alleged victims have been notified. Thompson has been charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor. He was arrested in Lynchburg, Virginia on Thursday and is expected to appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
The U.S. Attorney's Office, FBI, and Massachusetts State Police were all involved in the investigation and has become part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to fight child sexual exploitation and abuse.
