According to TMZ, Thornton was on an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles in May when another passenger saw what she described as “disturbing messages and images” on his laptop.
The passenger believed it was a chatroom for people with pedophilic interests, took pictures of Thornton visiting the site, and alerted the flight crew. The captain contacted authorities, and law enforcement met Thornton when the plane landed at LAX. He was questioned and then allowed to leave.
7 Comments
nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev · 26 pts · 4d
I feel like your summary is missing the more nuanced part of the article
Doesn't make him innocent, but if these claims come with evidence I could see this being a real scenario. Shouldn't be looking to immediately jump on labeling someone a pedo
nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev · 22 pts · 4d
https://www.tmz.com/2026/09/03/jim-thornton-chatroom-messages-that-led-to-airport-detainment/
TMZ article has pictures attached and doesn't look good for him or his story. He appears to be "NicholasB77" in the room
And worse
Sounds like he's a real creep. I don't see how you could read these messages (assuming some scenario where the NicholasB77 is some other dude also on a plane and not him) and not realize you are, in fact, not on the suicide hotline chat room
Malica@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 4d
Why tf did they let him go then? These are pretty damning
wr2623@midwest.social · 5 pts · 4d
Because free speech is still a thing. They would need to find evidence that he had/distributed csam content, or had actually molested someone.
Best we can hope for is that they started an investigation and will manage to link something to him, but an adult talking to other adults isn't illegal so they aren't going to arrest him on the spot in the airport.
If they are working on an investigation they won't actually arrest him until they think they have enough concrete evidence to actually win a case, and that is usually weeks/months later.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 4d
Sure, and Pete Townsend wasn't a pedo, he was just doing research.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
He got off on the possibility of getting caught. Then he got caught. Even a small amount of power does weird things to the brain, imagine what billionaires experience.
Stupid is as stupid does.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 2 pts · 4d
wow. last time I saw about this there were no real details.