A perverted American Airways flight attendant who confessed to taping his cellphone to the airplane bathroom’s lid to movie women as younger as seven years outdated has been sentenced to 18 1/2 years in jail.
Estes Carter Thompson III pleaded responsible earlier this yr to recording 5 underage women over a nine-month interval — in addition to amassing a trove of AI-generated youngster pornography.
The 37-year-old now-fired flight attendant apologized at his sentencing Wednesday, conceding that his wicked actions have been “egocentric, perverse and improper.”
Boston U.S. District Court docket Decide Julia Kobick referred to as Thompson’s conduct “appalling” and stated the filmed children’ “innocence has been misplaced” due to it.
Federal prosecutors famous that Thompson had been “recording movies of the youngsters’s our bodies in one among their most personal moments, after which storing, modifying, and revisiting these movies, all for his personal sexual gratification,” in keeping with a sentencing memorandum obtained by Boston.com.
Thompson “robbed 5 younger women of their innocence and perception within the goodness of the world and the folks they might encounter in it, as a substitute leaving them with worry, distrust, insecurity, and unhappiness,” prosecutors stated.
The North Carolina native was arrested in September 2023 on a Boston-bound flight after he escorted a 14-year-old passenger to the rest room — however requested to enter first to scrub his fingers, mentioning that the bathroom seat was not working, prosecutors instructed the US District Court docket in Boston.
The woman then discovered an iPhone crudely hid underneath pink upkeep stickers that stated “seat damaged” on the underside of the bathroom seat.
The teenager snapped photographs of the hidden digicam, returned to her seat, and confirmed them to her dad and mom.
The women’ father confronted Thompson, who hid himself within the rest room for the rest of the flight and deleted all of his cellphone’s knowledge.
Investigators found extra pink stickers in his suitcase, and a search of his iCloud account revealed extra recordings of 4 different underage women — ages 7, 9, 11 and 14 — in addition to photographs of an unaccompanied 9-year-old asleep in her seat, and a hoard of sexual AI-generated pictures involving kids.
He pleaded responsible in March to fees of tried sexual exploitation of youngsters and possession of kid pornography depicting a prepubescent minor.
Thompson will serve his sentence at FMC Butner in North Carolina and intends to endure therapy for intercourse offenders.
Along with the 18-plus years behind bars, he should additionally serve 5 years of supervised launch.
Thompson was instantly fired by American Airways after the incident, however the firm continues to be going through a civil lawsuit from one of many victims.
Paul Llewellyn, whose Texas-based legislation agency Lewis & Llewellyn is representing the kid’s household, instructed Boston.com it’s “deeply troubling” Thompson was in a position to exploit his place “in such a calculated and invasive manner.”
“American Airways owes these households — and the general public — solutions and significant reforms to make sure this could by no means occur once more,” he stated.
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