Jim Thornton — who has now been fired from his “Wheel of Fortune” announcer duties — appeared to participate in a disturbing pedophilia chatroom while aboard a cross-country commercial flight.
The passenger who was sitting next to Thornton on a May 14 American Airlines flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Los Angeles took photos of him looking at, reading and seemingly engaging in a conversation on “lifeline.chat,” a website which purportedly claims to offer mental health support to individuals with pedophilic thoughts.
In two of the pics, messages — presumably from Thornton — were written in the chat bar. These messages were later sent to the chatroom by username “NicholasB77,” per additional pictures.
During the dialogue, which lasted roughly an hour per displayed timestamps, user “NicholasB77” made a comment about how Golden Corral is a “nice hangout for kids” and that they saw “a couple of cute boys and a hot little girl” while dining there the day before. The user added in the next message, “All-you-can-eat Boyffet.”
User “NicholasB77” later wrote, “It’s crazy doing Lifeline from the sky.”
When someone replied, “Wait you’re on a plane right 1788561484? What if someone sees?” User “NicholasB77” wrote back, “Yes exactly! What if someone sees a random sequence of lines on a screen. I love it. I hide the part that says ‘Lifeline’ so it’s just a few lines. It’s a big middle finger to da man who takes away every other enjoyable activity we CL’s have.”
When someone then said, “I mean [I guess] it’s not like you’re doing anything illegal lol,” user “NicholasB77” replied, “Wait’ll I fire up Boymoment and start looking at the galleries! Heheeeeee…”
Someone then warned “NicholasB77” to not be like “the guy that got arrested getting off the tube because he had CP as his phone wallpaper.”
User “NicholasB77” replied, “Yeah right? I mean truly the fact that I don’t do any of that stuff makes me say ‘f–k it.’ Free speech, baby.”
Reps for Thornton, American Airlines and Sony Pictures Television Studios did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
As Page Six reported earlier Friday, a Sony Pictures Television Studios spokesperson confirmed that Thornton had been fired after an investigation into the flight incident.
“Following a thorough investigation, Jim Thornton’s employment with ‘Wheel of Fortune’ has been terminated, effective immediately,” a statement obtained by Page Six read.
Earlier this week — before the aforementioned images became public — a rep for Sony initially announced that they had suspended Thornton. They stated that the company had “recently been made aware of allegations” against him.
A rep for American Airlines later said that the aircraft in question “was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport following concerns reported by a customer onboard,” but the rep also did not elaborate on the nature of the incident.
It was at this time that Thornton’s attorney, Allison Hart, told Page Six her client “did nothing wrong.”
According to Hart, Thornton — who is “active in suicide-prevention advocacy” and frequents both 988lifeline.org and its chat forum, chat.988lifeline.org — was “misdirected to a forum with a similar URL, the forum lifeline.chat,” by an “acquaintance in the suicide prevention space.”
When Thornton — who shares one son with his wife of 35 years, Sue Thornton — realized what the website was about, he allegedly “left the page and has not visited since,” Hart claimed.
She went on to insist that the website “lifeline.chat” itself “is not unlawful, there is no unlawful child pornography or other pedophilic content,” adding that her client “has never viewed, downloaded or consumed any child pornography whether on that commercial flight in May or at any other time.”
Hart stressed that Jim, 61, “was never arrested or charged with a crime,” claiming law enforcement “immediately confirmed that no crime had occurred” and told her client he was “free to go.”
Reps for the Los Angeles International Airport Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
Meanwhile, a rep for the FBI told us, “As a matter of policy, the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of investigations.”
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