American Airlines retreats after blaming a 9-year-old for not seeing a hidden camera in a lavatory - A former flight attendant is accused of luring girls to use the lavatory after taping his iPhone to the toilet seat.

FILE - In this photo provided by the law firm Lewis & Llewellyn LLP, an iPhone is taped to the back of a toilet seat on an American Airlines flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Boston, Sept. 2, 2023. Estes Carter Thompson III, an American Airlines flight attendant, pleaded not guilty Monday, May 20, 2024, on charges of trying to secretly video record a 14-year-old female passenger using an airplane bathroom last September. Police have also alleged that Thompson had recordings of four other girls using lavatories on an aircraft where he worked. (Lewis & Llewellyn LLP via AP, File)

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines has distanced itself from a court filing in which the carrier said a 9-year-old girl should have noticed there was a camera taped to the seat of an airplane lavatory.

A former flight attendant is accused of luring girls to use the lavatory after taping his iPhone to the toilet seat. The 9-year-old’s family flew from Texas to California on American last year and sued the airline after the FBI told them that videos of the girl were found on the flight attendant’s phone.

In response to the lawsuit, American said in a court document that it would dispute the family’s claim by showing that any injuries the 9-year-old girl suffered were caused by the girl’s “own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by (her) use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”

An American spokesperson said Thursday that outside lawyers working for the company “made an error in this filing.”

“We do not believe this child is at fault, and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously,” the spokesperson said.

Lawyers for the airline amended the filing Wednesday in a state district court in Austin, Texas. The new filing is shorter and deletes the accusation that the girl caused her own injuries.

Estes Carter Thompson III, a flight attendant who was later fired by American, pleaded not guilty this week to attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of images of child sexual abuse.

Authorities say Thompson, 37, tried to secretly record video of a 14-year-old girl using the bathroom on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston, and had recordings of four girls including the 9-year-old using lavatories on earlier flights. He was arrested in January and has been in federal custody ever since.

Thompson is next due in federal court in Boston on July 1. The charges he faces carry maximum sentences of up to 30 and 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

The 14-year-old’s family is also suing American, which is based in Fort Worth.

Article Link

Archive

 

[Thiletonomics]

He has been sentenced to 18 1/2 years in prison. / Archive

A former American Airlines flight attendant who prosecutors said "took advantage of his position of trust" to secretly record and "exploit" innocent young girls in airplane bathrooms was sentenced in Boston federal court Wednesday.

Estes Carter Thompson III, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, according to court documents.

In a sentencing memo, federal prosecutors described how Thomspon targeted unaccompanied minors and lured them to bathrooms he rigged with a hidden camera "for his own sexual gratification."

"Estes Carter Thompson III took advantage of his position of trust as a flight attendant to select among the passengers on his flights innocent children who he could exploit, directing them to an aircraft bathroom that he had set up as a secret recording studio, recording videos of the children’s bodies in one of their most private moments, and then storing, editing, and revisiting those videos, all for his own sexual gratification," the memo said. "In so doing, 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."

Thompson, who was indicted in April 2024, pleaded guilty on March 6, 2025, to charges of attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.

The case began when a 14-year-old girl on one of Thompson’s flights to Boston discovered a cellphone taped to the lid of a lavatory toilet in September 2023. Authorities later alleged that Thompson had filmed at least four other girls — between the ages of 7 and 14 — using airplane bathrooms over a nine-month span in 2023.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick called his actions "appalling" and said the child victims had lost their "innocence" because of what he did, according to the Associated Press.

At his sentencing hearing Wednesday, Thompson apologized and described his actions as "selfish, perverse and wrong."

A lawyer representing the victims’ families, Paul Llewellyn, praised the outcome and criticized American Airlines’ handling of the situation in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

"We are pleased that the perpetrator has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term so that he can no longer prey on young girls," Llewellyn said.

"But no family should ever have to endure what these families have gone through," he added. "It’s deeply troubling that an American Airlines employee was able to exploit his position in such a calculated and invasive way. American Airlines owes these families – and the public – answers and meaningful reforms to ensure this can never happen again."

American Airlines previously apologized after the company's "outside counsel" appeared to blame one of the victims in a prior court filing, evoking outrage from the lawyer representing the victims. The filing said the girl "knew or should have known" that the lavatory "contained a visible and illuminated recording device."

According to a civil lawsuit, the girl took a photo of the phone taped to the toilet seat and showed it to her parents back at their seats. Her father then made a beeline for the plane's flight attendants with the photo and yelled, "What the hell just happened in the first-class bathroom with my daughter?"

American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on Thursday.

Thompson will serve his sentence at FMC Butner in North Carolina and intends to undergo both sex offender-specific treatment and substance abuse treatment, according to the sentencing memo.

His attorney, Scott Lauer, declined to comment to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

Fox News' Chris Eberhart and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

He has been sentenced to 18 1/2 years in prison. / Archive

Considering some other guy just got 8 whole years for raping two boys I am ok with this.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Considering some other guy just got 8 whole years for raping two boys I am ok with this.

You can also add the anime director that paid for sex with minors, yet he only got 4 years for that:

Crime Post in thread '‘Your Name’ Movie Producer Confesses To Have Paid Over 20 Underage Girls For Sexual Favors'

Mar 7, 2025

He has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. / Archive

WAKAYAMA -- A producer of the 2016 Japanese animated film "Your Name." was sentenced to four years in prison by the Wakayama District Court Feb. 28 for paying cash to multiple underage girls for sex and filming their acts.

Koichiro Ito, 53, a former production company manager and a resident of Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture, had been charged with offenses including anti-child prostitution and anti-child pornography law violations as well as rape, with prosecutors seeking a six-year prison sentence.

Presiding Judge Keiko...

• Thiletonomics

• 

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

This is why you have sons, train them to go in first and piss directly on anything like that.

 

[isalaide]

I have a daughter of this age and this is the fucking world I have to raise her in. Jesus wept.

 

[Begemot]

You do have to be pretty retarded if you use the literal glowing toilet.

"They...they really want it and deserve it......yeah.....I'm actually helping these girls. They should have been able to recognise my pervoid paedo paraphernalia."

That's a hell of a take, my dude.

Neck yourself.

 

[TowinKarz]

Boy did he pick a bad time to poke a fed-up populace that's been subjected to 15 years of lawfare vis-a-vis state enforced grooming...... just 2 or 3 years piror? He'd be sent on his way with an apology and some token counseling he'd duck out on as soon as nobody was watching.

And that's Actually A Good Thing (tm).

 

[Clotso Coof]

If I knew a young heterosexual male who wanted to be a flight attendant, I'd be...surprised. Low paying and low status job known for fags and dumb women. You've got to notice patterns and wonder why he'd choose that job.

Children ARE retarded, though.

I recently had to "fix" one of those huge supersoaker squirt guns. Turns out the kid stuffed 17 mini rubber duckies in it.

Unfortunately, you can't shoot out duckies.

 

[not william stenchever]

I recently had to "fix" one of those huge supersoaker squirt guns. Turns out the kid stuffed 17 mini rubber duckies in it.

Unfortunately, you can't shoot out duckies.

Children are capable of magical feats of "how the hell did you do that, and why?"

 

[TowinKarz]

Unfortunately, you can't shoot out duckies.

There's something charming about childhood ideas... you can just see the logic at work, even if it's faulty......

Children are capable of magical feats of "how the hell did you do that, and why?"

Oh, I think the "why" was easy.... he imagined pelting his foes with a high-velocity stream of QWACK!!!! The "how'd you do that?" part is still a mystery, sometimes.

LIke, say, you're cleaning out the basement and find a medicine bottle with a Lego man stuck inside it... and you remember "Oh yeah, I put him in there and couldn't get him back out, so I hid it because I didn't want to get in trouble" ... and then you realize, the diameter of the bottle neck is smaller than that of the figurine, and you genuinely are impressed you somehow made it work at all, since grown-up you couldn't manage it no matter how hard you tried.

 

[Burd Turglar]

I eagerly await to see how Delta can top this, as they and AA are in a forever-war to see who can stay in business despite providing the worst customer service in the airline industry.

I see you've never flown Spirit.

 

[babyDunk]

He has been sentenced to 18 1/2 years in prison. / Archive

Should have been the death penalty, but i guess that'll do.