A former flight attendant for American Airlines pleaded guilty on Thursday to using a hidden iPhone to record underage girls on airplanes.
The former flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, 27, from Charlotte, North Carolina, is now facing up to 20 years in prison and was charged with attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor, the office of US Attorney Leah B. Foley said.
Local authorities recovered videos from Thompson's iCloud account, which showed minors ranging from seven years old to 14 years old being recorded in the bathrooms of aircraft.
They also found more than 50 images of a 9-year-old girl who was flying without a guardian, including images "pre-flight and close-ups of her face while she was sleeping," prosecutors said.
Foley's office also stated that there were numerous AI-generated images depicting child sexual abuse on his iCloud.
A plea deal that was filed in the case said that Thompson is facing "maximum prison terms of 30 years for one count and 20 years for the other, and that prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 15-20 years behind bars.
"I expect the defense will seek a 15-year sentence," Scott Lauer, Thompson's federal public defender, said in a statement.
How did he get caught?
Prosecutors said that Thompson was working an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Boston in September 2023 when he targeted a 14-year-old girl.
When she went to the bathroom, Thompson stopped her and told her that he just had to wash his hands. According to the prosecutors, he walked in and walked out quickly and told the girl that the toilet seat was broken.
When she walked into the bathroom, she saw red stickers on the underside of the open toilet that had hand-written messages that said "INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT", "REMOVE FROM SERVICE", and "SEAT BROKEN".
He taped his iPhone under the stickers to record a video, but luckily, the girl brought her phone with her and took photos to show her parents, who were on the flight, the official said.
Prosecutors said that the girl's father confronted Thompson, who then locked himself in the bathroom for three to five minutes with his iPhone right before the flight's descent.
Once the flight had landed, the local authorities found that Thompson had restored his phone to factory settings, and when they searched his suitcase, they found another 11 hand-written stickers.
When searching his iCloud account, it was revealed that Thompson had filmed other minors on four other flights between January and August of 2023.
He will be sentenced on June 17.
Prosecutors will recommend that Thompson spend five years on supervised release and "be ordered to pay restitution in an amount to be determined at the sentencing hearing," along with a long prison sentence.