CHARLOTTE — A former flight attendant for American Airlines has been indicted by a federal grand jury after he was caught recording a minor passenger in plane lavatories, according to federal documents.
Estes Carter Thompson III of Charlotte was indicted for one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts on Friday.
Channel 9 was the first to report when Thompson was arrested.
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Thompson is accused of recording or trying to record a 14-year-old girl as she used the bathroom onboard the flight on Sept. 2, 2023, while he was working as a flight attendant, according to court documents.
The girl got up to use the main cabin lavatory nearest to where she was seated about midflight, according to officials. The lavatory was occupied and after she waited a short time, Thompson allegedly approached her, told her that the first-class lavatory was unoccupied, and escorted her toward first class.
“Before she can go in, he stops her and says, ‘Hang on. I need to go in and wash my hands. We’re about to start collecting garbage.’ Which is odd. In retrospect, it’s just a strange thing to say,” the girl’s father told Channel 9 in September 2023. “When he came out, he told her ‘The toilet seat is broken. We’re going to fix it when we get back to Charlotte. Don’t worry about it.’ And so, she didn’t think very much of what she saw when she then went in after he left.”
Court documents corroborated that claim and stated that Thompson then left the lavatory.
The teen girl saw red stickers on the underside of the toilet seat lid, which read, “inoperative catering equipment” and “remove from service,” and “seat broken” was hand-written in black ink on one of the stickers, according to the news release from acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy, District of Massachusetts.
An iPhone was hidden under the red stickers and the girl took a photo of it.
She left the lavatory and Thompson went in right after that.
The girl told her parents about what happened, and they reported it to other flight attendants, who told the captain. Law enforcement on the ground was notified about the incident.
Thompson’s suitcase had 11 “inoperative catering equipment” stickers, like the ones in the lavatory, according to investigators.
Hundreds of images of AI-generated child pornography were also allegedly found stored on Thompson’s iCloud account.
American Airlines sent the following statement to Channel 9 following Thompson’s arrest in January:
“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.”
Thompson was “immediately withheld from service” after the incident in September and hasn’t worked since, the airline said.
If Thompson’s convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison for the first charge and up to 20 years in prison for the second charge.
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