An American Airlines flight attendant was arrested Thursday over allegations that he secretly recorded children using aircraft restrooms, prosecutors said.
Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was detained in Virginia and charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts said in a statement. According to charging documents, Thompson’s alleged wrongdoing was uncovered after a 14-year-old girl noticed his phone taped to a toilet seat.
“The deeply disturbing conduct alleged here is something no parent or child should ever have to worry about when they travel,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy. “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.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Prosecutors say Thompson was working on an American Airlines flight between Charlotte and Boston, Massachusetts, on Sept. 2, 2023. Midway through the flight, the 14-year-old girl left her seat to use the nearest restroom, which was occupied at the time. After waiting a short while, prosecutors claim, Thompson approached the girl and told her that she could use an unoccupied lavatory in first class.
Before allowing the girl to enter the first class bathroom, Thompson allegedly told the girl that he first needed to wash his hands and said the toilet seat was broken. After Thompson left the lavatory, the girl entered and noticed stickers on the underside of the toilet seat lid reading “INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT” and “REMOVE FROM SERVICE,” prosecutors say. A message reading “SEAT BROKEN” written in black ink was also on one of the stickers.
“It is alleged that, beneath the red stickers, Thompson had concealed his iPhone to record a video,” prosecutors said. The girl used her phone to take a picture of the concealed phone and, after leaving the lavatory, Thompson allegedly entered immediately.
When the girl returned to her seat, court documents say, the girl told her parents about what had happened and showed them the picture. The parents then reported the incident to other members of the flight crew who notified the captain, who in turn contacted law enforcement on the ground.
The girl’s father also allegedly confronted Thompson—who soon after locked himself inside the bathroom once again with his iPhone. Once on the ground, law enforcement at Boston Logan Airport searched Thompson’s device and found it may have been restored to factory settings, prosecutors say.
A later search of Thompson’s luggage found that he’d been carrying 11 stickers similar to the ones the girl photographed on the flight. When investigators also searched Thompson’s iCloud account, they allegedly found four more instances in which he’d recorded a minor using an aircraft lavatory, prosecutors claim. The victims—allegedly recorded between January and August 2023—were 7, 9, 11, and 14 at the times they were filmed.
Authorities also allegedly found more than 50 images of an unaccompanied minor in the iCloud account. “The images included photos taken while the minor victim was seated in her seat pre-flight and close-ups of her face while sleeping,” prosecutors said. Thompson’s account also allegedly contained “hundreds of images of AI-generated child pornography.”
If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison on the count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and a further 20 years for child pornography possession, prosecutors say.
Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, said Thompson “repeatedly targeted unsuspecting children to sexually exploit them for his own gratification.” “What Mr. Thompson is accused of doing is disgraceful, and we believe, calculated, given that this alleged conduct occurred on at least five flights,” she added.
