Flight attendant in federal custody, accused of recording minors in aircraft restroom
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – An American Airlines flight attendant is in federal custody Thursday for allegedly recording a teenage girl in the bathroom of a flight bound for Kansas City.
He is also alleged to have possessed recordings of four additional minor female passengers using lavatories aboard the aircraft he had worked previously. That includes a flight between Charlotte, North Carolina and Kansas City, Missouri on July 26, 2023.
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Estes Carter Thompson III, 36, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.
Thompson was arrested by the FBI on Thursday in Virginia and will remain in custody pending his initial appearance in federal court in Boston at a later date.
According to the charging documents, on Sept. 2, 2023, while working as a flight attendant onboard an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Boston, Thompson video-recorded or attempted to surreptitiously video-record a 14-year-old female passenger as she used the aircraft restroom.
Specifically, approximately midway through the flight, the minor victim got up to use the main cabin lavatory nearest to where she was seated. When the minor victim arrived at the lavatory it was occupied.
Court documents say after the minor victim had been waiting a short time, Thompson allegedly approached her, told her that the first-class lavatory was unoccupied and escorted her toward first class. Before the minor victim entered the lavatory, Thompson allegedly told her that he needed to wash his hands and that the lavatory’s toilet seat was broken and briefly entered the lavatory. It is alleged that, after Thompson exited the lavatory, the minor victim entered and observed red stickers on the underside of the toilet seat lid, which was in the open position, that stated, “INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT” and “REMOVE FROM SERVICE,” and “SEAT BROKEN” was hand-written in black ink on one of the stickers.
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It is suspected that, beneath the red stickers, Thompson had concealed his iPhone to record a video. The minor victim used her phone to take a picture of the red stickers and the concealed iPhone she found in the lavatory before exiting, at which time Thompson allegedly went back in immediately.
Court documents say when the victim returned to her seat, she informed her parents of what she saw and showed them the picture. The victim’s parents reported it to other flight attendants onboard who notified the captain, who in turn notified law enforcement on the ground.
It is alleged that the victim’s father confronted Thompson who, shortly thereafter, locked himself in the lavatory with his iPhone for three to five minutes prior to the flight’s descent, according to court documents.
When the flight arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport, law enforcement noticed that Thompson’s iPhone may have been restored to factory settings. It is alleged that a subsequent search of Thompson’s suitcase was found to contain 11 “INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT” stickers, like those seen by the victim on the back of the toilet seat.
A search of Thompson’s iCloud account allegedly revealed four additional instances between January and August 2023 in which Thompson recorded a minor using the lavatory on an aircraft.
The victims allegedly depicted in the recordings were 7, 9, 11 and 14 years old at the time.
Additionally, over 50 images of a 9-year-old unaccompanied minor were allegedly found in Thompson’s iCloud. The images included photos taken while the minor victim was seated in her seat pre-flight and close-ups of her face while sleeping.
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It is further suspected that hundreds of images of AI-generated child pornography were also found stored on Thompson’s iCloud account.
