Photos Show Jim Thornton Perusing Alleged Pedophile Chatroom on Plane

The broadcaster's decades-long run as a game show announcer took an abrupt turn this week. After Sony confirmed his suspension, newly published photos brought the details of his mid-flight incident into public view for the first time.

New details are emerging about the in-flight incident earlier this year, involving a fellow passenger, that got "Wheel of Fortune" announcer Jim Thornton pulled from the show and subsequently recast.

On Thursday, September 3, TMZ published photographs that allegedly showed Thornton looking at a disturbing chatroom on his laptop during an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Los Angeles.

A passenger who was seated beside Thornton told TMZ she saw images and texts suggesting it was a chatroom for pedophiles. One message she noticed said, "Couple of cute boys and a hot little girl."

Another read, "All-you-can-eat Boyfett," an apparent reference to a restaurant where underage kids could be found. A separate message reportedly mentioned "CP," which the passenger believed stood for "child pornography."

Alarmed, the passenger alerted a flight attendant and shared the photos with the crew. The captain then notified authorities ahead of landing, and law enforcement met the plane when it touched down at LAX.

Officers questioned Thornton — who was wearing a "Wheel of Fortune"-branded jacket at the time — before releasing him. The broadcaster has not been arrested or charged in connection with the incident, which took place on May 14.

Thornton's attorney, Allison Hart, claimed in a letter obtained by Page Six on Thursday — before TMZ published the photos — that he stumbled into the chatroom by accident while browsing another site entirely.

"My client has become active in suicide-prevention advocacy since losing a close family member to suicide two years ago, and he has spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation," she wrote in the letter. "One of the sites my client has visited is 988lifeline.org, and its chat forum chat.988lifeline.org."

"Through an acquaintance in the suicide prevention space, my client was misdirected to a forum with a similar URL, the forum lifeline.chat, which my client understood to be a forum offering suicide prevention support similar to 988lifeline.org and chat.988lifeline.org," Hart claimed.

According to Hart, Thornton had no idea the website "lifeline.chat" claims to offer mental health support to individuals with pedophilic thoughts. "When my client understood what the website was about, he left the page and has not visited since," she claimed.

She continued, "The website lifeline.chat itself is not unlawful, there is no unlawful child pornography or other pedophilic content, and my client has never viewed, downloaded or consumed any child pornography, whether on that commercial flight in May or at any other time."

Hart further stressed, "It is for that reason that my client was never arrested or charged with a crime. Law enforcement immediately confirmed that no crime had occurred and immediately told my client he was free to go. In short, my client did nothing wrong."

Despite his attorney's insistence that the incident was a misunderstanding, the fallout has already reached his career. Thornton was suspended from "Wheel of Fortune" on Tuesday in the wake of the airplane incident.

"We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton," a spokesperson for Sony told Page Six on Tuesday. "He has been suspended from 'Wheel of Fortune,' and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation."

Producers are reportedly scrambling to replace Thornton, and he is expected to be edited out of the show's upcoming 44th season entirely.