Roblox Kidnapping Lawsuit Filed After Child Was Abducted and Sex Trafficked

Mother claims her 13-year-old daughter was groomed online while using Roblox by a 37 year old man who abducted and raped her.

An Iowa mother experienced one of a parent’s worst nightmares when her 13-year-old daughter was abducted by a sexual predator through the Roblox app, raped and trafficked for sex across state lines.

The incident happened earlier this year in May, and the girl has since been reunited with her family, with the perpetrator behind bars. 

On August 28, the mother, identified only as T.T., filed a complaint (PDF) against Roblox Corporation, arguing that they have made their app a sexual predator’s playground, sacrificing children to horrible fates just to increase profits. Originally filed in Iowa state court, the lawsuit was removed on the same day to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

Roblox was originally released in 2006 as a video game construction set that allows users to build their own games, explore player-created worlds and interact with others through customizable avatars and in-game purchases.

The app, and others like it, are marketed as safe and family-friendly. However, Roblox Corporation now faces more than 300 child exploitation lawsuits by plaintiffs who say the company failed to take reasonable steps to protect children from sexual predators. 

Some of the claims against Roblox are similar to those being pursued in social media addiction lawsuits filed nationwide, which claim that the platforms are actually designed to addict users and prioritize monetization strategies over the health and safety of users, who are disproportionately young children.

Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok face allegations of intentionally designing their platforms in ways that take advantage of children’s vulnerabilities, resulting in excessive use, emotional harm, and in some cases, online sexual exploitation. The lawsuits further contend that these platforms lacked adequate safety controls or meaningful parental oversight tools.

According to the mother’s lawsuit, her daughter, identified as D.H., met an adult sexual predator on Roblox, who then groomed the girl without her parent’s knowledge, who believed Roblox’s claims of being family friendly and safe.

On May 24, 2025, the sexual predator kidnapped D.H. from her grandparents’ home in Des Moines, Iowa. She was trafficked across state lines and repeatedly sexually abused and raped. The child predator was eventually caught and arrested, and D.H. returned to her family. The alleged abductor, who is 37 years-old, is in a Tennessee jail facing four counts of aggravated statutory rape.

“Through its pervasive misrepresentations about safety, Defendant lures parents into believing that its app is an appropriate place for children to play. In reality, and as Defendant well knows, the unreasonably dangerous and defective design of its app makes children easy prey for pedophiles.”

– T.T. v. The Roblox Corporation

The lawsuit points out that the app allows adult users to identify which players are children, initiate conversations with them and exchange digital currency, called Robux. The company also implemented a new system in 2023 called Roblox Connect, which is a virtual call feature making it even easier for adult predators to directly access and groom children.

T.T. and parents filing similar lawsuits say the app is more focused on maximizing unhealthy levels of engagement from children than protecting them. Its virtual worlds can vary widely in appearance and intent, with many clearly focused on adult sexual activities.

The site even allows users to host virtual worlds that include strip clubs staffed entirely by child avatars and worlds with names like “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party.” These design features have made the app a travel destination for child sexual predators, who do not have to verify who they are, and are able to specifically target and groom children with no safeguards to prevent it.

The app has become known for being a first point of contact between sexual predators and children, despite assurances to parents that the app is safe.

T.T. presents claims of design defect, unreasonable design, failure to warn, negligence, negligent undertaking, fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, and loss of consortium. She seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

Teen Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

T.T. is just one of a growing number of parents whose children have been harmed by online activities designed to keep them addicted. Many of those claims have been filed in federal court, leading to a teen social media addiction lawsuit multidistrict litigation (MDL) being formed last year in the Northern District of California under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Judge Rogers plans to hold a series of bellwether trials involving both individual injury claims and suits filed by school districts, which should help the parties evaluate how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony likely to be disputed throughout the litigation.

Although the first social media addiction bellwether trial was originally slated for October 2025, a recent order indicates the date will likely be postponed until sometime in 2026.