A former American Airlines flight attendant has found himself at the center of a disturbing lawsuit after an Austin family alleges their nine-year-old daughter was secretly recorded in an aircraft lavatory. Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, is facing multiple charges involving children, including attempted sexual exploitation and possession of child abuse images depicting a prepubescent minor. According to a report by FOX 4 News, the girl's family had no idea about the incident until the FBI presented them with the evidence.
"In my opinion, he is a serial pedophile," said Paul Llewellyn, an attorney for one of the victim's families, in an interview obtained by FOX 4 News. The case took a shocking turn when the FBI approached the family with a photograph showing their daughter exposed in the airplane bathroom, asking, "Is this your daughter?" Thompson was arrested last month after authorities confiscated his phone and found it contained inappropriate videos captured in aircraft lavatories.
The lawsuit alleges that Thompson directed young girls to use the more sequestered first-class restrooms on the plane under the pretext of the economy bathroom being unavailable. "The idea that he’s bringing kids up from the economy bathroom to first class…why didn’t that raise a red flag?" questioned Llewellyn. The Daily Mail indicated that Thompson's method involved hiding his iPhone behind stickers misleadingly marked "seat broken."
The probe by federal investigators was sparked when a 14-year-old girl, during a flight from Charlotte to Boston, noticed an iPhone taped to the toilet and raised alarm. Following these events, the FBI linked videos from Thompson's iCloud account to inappropriate activity involving minors, with victims' ages ranging from 7 to 14 years. "We know there were five families involved in a the current criminal proceedings, but that’s just based on what the FBI learned from this phone, so who knows how many years he’s been doing this, who knows how many phones he has used," Llewellyn told FOX 4 News.
American Airlines, which was also named in the lawsuit, is reportedly cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation. However, the airline has not responded to inquiries regarding the new lawsuit as of now. With the families of the victims grappling with the unsettling breach of privacy, the case continues to unravel the extent of Thompson's alleged voyeurism and its lasting impact on the involved children and their families.
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