by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 8:45 AM ET, Thu July 24, 2025
An American Airlines flight attendant who had been accused of secretly filming young girls in airplane lavatories has been sentenced to 18.5 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release on Wednesday, July 23.
The former flight attendant-turned-criminal is 37-year-old Estes Carter Thompson III, who ABC News says was arrested in January, 2024 in Lynchburg, Virginia after a 14-year-old girl told the police about seeing an iPhone taped to the lid of a toilet in an airplane lavatory.
AP News reported that the girl had been escorted to the specific lavatory by Thompson when the first one was already occupied. The girl noticed an iPhone had been taped under a sticker that said “seat broken,” and she took photo evidence of the phone and stickers.
According to the police allegation, Thompson had recorded video of five girls between the ages of 7 and 14, which he had acquired over a 9-month period.
He was also previously indicted on one count of sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child sexual abuse images.
Boston U.S. District Court Judge Julia Kobick called his behavior “appalling” during sentencing, while U.S. government attorneys said the man had “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 apologized to the victims at his sentencing. He will spend his sentence in FMC Butner in North Carolina.
Crimes committed in the air are almost always prosecuted as federal crimes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation gets involved in most of these, including in allegations of sexual assault or misconduct, violence, theft or interfering with the flight crew.
The FBI encourages those who witness a crime while in the air to report it immediately to the FBI tip line.
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