11-Year-Old Child Sextorted, Assaulted Through Roblox: Man Sues Gaming Giant
Lawsuit alleges Gaming Platform Enabled Predator’s Grooming, Sextortion, and Sexual Abuse of Child: GGH and Milberg Law Firms represent over 400 victims of sexual exploitation on Roblox and Discord
DALLAS, TEXAS – A lawsuit filed today alleges Roblox Corporation, the popular online gaming platform, enabled the grooming, sextortion, and sexual assault of a 11-year-old child through its online gaming platform in around 2007.
The Plaintiff, now an adult and former United States Marine, is sharing his story for the first time – alleging Roblox’s failure to implement safety measures allowed an adult predator to target and abuse him in what attorneys call an “egregious case of public importance.”
Gould Grieco & Hensley, PLLC and Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC filed the complaint in The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in the Dallas Division. It alleges the perpetrator, posing as another child on Roblox, gained Plaintiff’s trust through in-game messaging and exchanges of Robux, the platform’s digital currency, which online predators frequently use to groom young users.
Eventually, the perpetrator coerced Plaintiff into sharing explicit photos of himself in exchange for Robux. The user began threatening to publicly release the images unless Plaintiff paid him a sum of money or agreed to meet in-person. When Plaintiff arrived at the designated location nearby in Ennis, Texas, he discovered the individual was not a peer, but an adult man in his 30s. What followed was horrific molestation and sexual abuse of a child at the hands of the perpetrator – the effects of which Plaintiff continues to endure.
The lawsuit alleges Roblox has refused to adopt reasonable safety features that could have prevented this abuse and others like it. These include age-gating, stricter content moderation, better identity verification, and stronger parental controls.
“There are simple, well-known steps Roblox could have taken to protect kids — but it chose not to,” said Martin D. Gould, Founding Partner of GGH. “This wasn’t an accident. It was a business decision. And children like our client have paid the price.”
Internal accounts from former employees reveal Roblox knowingly deprioritized child safety in favor of user growth. One former staffer described the company’s approach succinctly: “You can keep your players safe, but then there would be less of them on the platform. Or you just let them do what they want to do. And then the numbers all look good and investors will be happy.”
“When your own employees are acknowledging safety gets sacrificed for user growth, that’s not just negligence — it’s a systemic failure,” said Steven L. Vanderporten, Partner at GGH.“Our client’s life was forever changed because of that failure, and Roblox must be held accountable.”
Despite this knowledge, Roblox launched extensive marketing campaigns claiming their platform was safe. Roblox claimed “safety is in our DNA” and promised “cutting-edge technologies” to protect users, and assured parents of “zero-tolerance” for endangering children all while claiming safety was “at the core of everything we do.” The complaint alleges this follows a well-documented pattern the company was aware of but failed to prevent, despite having the technological means to do so.
“When a company tells parents ‘safety is in our DNA,’ yet knowingly fails to prevent harm it has the power to stop, that’s not just negligence – it’s a betrayal of trust,” said GGH Founding Partner, Mike Grieco.
“This lawsuit exposes a pattern of deception: public promises of protection while internally ignoring clear dangers,” said Gary Klinger, Partner at Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC. “Roblox had the tools to prevent this kind of abuse and chose not to use them.”
The plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages through ten counts including fraudulent misrepresentation, negligence, and strict liability claims. The lawsuit comes amid growing scrutiny of social media platforms’ child safety practices and recent investigations revealing widespread exploitation on Roblox, including the discovery of hundreds of Roblox games themed around convicted criminals.
The Plaintiff is represented by Martin D. Gould, Michael R. Grieco, and Steven L. Vanderporten of Gould Grieco & Hensley, PLLC, Gary Klinger, Melissa Nafash, Melinda Maxson, and Alexander Wolf of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC.