American Airlines flight attendant who filmed girls in lavatory is sentenced to more than 18 years

Straits Times

3 days ago

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CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – A former American Airlines flight attendant who used his mobile phone to secretly record girls as they used the lavatory on flights was sentenced on July 23 to 18½ years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
From January 2023 to September 2023, the flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, of Charlotte, North Carolina, secretly filmed girls using lavatories on American Airlines flights, the US attorney's office for the District of Massachusetts said in a sentencing memo.
He would direct them to specific lavatories where he set up 'a secret recording studio' using his cellphone, the memo said.
'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,' Ms Leah Foley, the US attorney for the District of Massachusetts, wrote in the sentencing memo.
Federal prosecutors recommended a sentence of 20 years in prison, with five years of supervised release. Ms Elianna J. Nuzum, the assistant US attorney who prosecuted the case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr Scott Lauer, a lawyer for Thompson, recommended a sentence of 15 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release, citing his substance abuse, mental health issues and lack of a criminal history.
Thompson was arrested in January 2024 and pleaded guilty in March 2025 to one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor, federal prosecutors said.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Julia Kobick called Thompson's behaviour 'appalling' and said the victims' 'innocence has been lost' because of his actions, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Judge Kobick recommended that Thompson serve his sentence at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, and that he participate in substance abuse and sex offender treatment programmes.
Thompson was also sentenced to five years supervised release after he completes his prison sentence.
According to AP, Thompson apologised in court on July 23 and said his actions were 'selfish, perverse and wrong'.
Hidden iPhone
According to prosecutors' sentencing memo, Thompson was working as a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight to Boston from Charlotte on Sept 2, 2023, when he tried to record a 14-year-old girl using the lavatory during the flight.
The girl was waiting for a lavatory in the main cabin when Thompson told her she could use the first-class bathroom and escorted her to the front of the plane. He informed her that the toilet seat in the lavatory was broken.
The girl noticed red stickers on the underside of the toilet seat lid that read 'INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT' with 'SEAT BROKEN' handwritten on one of the stickers.
It was not until after she used the toilet and went to flush that she noticed an iPhone with its flashlight on underneath the stickers, according to court documents.
The girl took a picture of the phone and told her parents, who told the crew. Her father confronted Thompson, who took his phone into a lavatory and restored the device to factory settings, wiping it clean, the document said.
In searching Thompson's iCloud account, investigators found evidence of four additional episodes in which Thompson recorded a minor using the lavatory on American Airlines flights in 2023, the document said.
They also found 50 images of a sixth child who flew as an unaccompanied minor on a flight in July 2023. Those included pictures of the child sleeping and of her clothed buttocks, as well as hundreds of images depicting child sexual abuse that were generated by artificial intelligence.
Investigators also found 11 'INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT' stickers in Thompson's suitcase, along with numerous copies of American Airlines forms pertaining to unaccompanied minors, the documents said.
Thompson was immediately removed from service after the September flight, American Airlines said after his arrest. NYTIMES