Public Safety · Valley-wide
Lawsuit filed in Las Vegas accuses Roblox of failing to shield a 9-year-old girl from a predator's explicit messages
A complaint filed in Las Vegas District Court alleges Roblox's design let a predator send explicit images to a 9-year-old for nearly two years. It comes after the company settled with Nevada's attorney general for $12.5 million.
What happened
A new lawsuit filed in Las Vegas accuses the online gaming platform Roblox of failing to protect a 9-year-old girl from a predator who sent her sexually explicit images, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The 80-page complaint was filed Wednesday in District Court by plaintiffs identified only as Mary and John Doe.
The suit accuses the San Mateo, California-based company of design defects, fraudulent concealment of defects, misrepresentations about safety, negligence and failure to warn children and parents about the risks of using the app. Roblox lets users play and create their own games, and tens of millions of children play on it daily, according to the company's annual reports as cited by the Review-Journal.
What the complaint alleges
Contact that lasted nearly two years
According to the complaint, the girl first met the predator online in 2021. The lawsuit says he built a false emotional connection with her, then groomed her and repeatedly sent her explicit content until 2023. The man is not named in the complaint, and the Review-Journal noted the lawsuit did not say whether the alleged conduct led to criminal charges or a conviction.
The filing argues the girl's case is not unique. "Tragically, what happened to Mary Doe is far from an isolated event," the lawsuit stated, according to the Review-Journal.
Claims about safety changes
Roblox changed its parental controls in 2024 and 2025, but the plaintiffs' attorneys argue predators can still reach children on the app. The lawsuit describes the safety updates as "little more than window dressing" and says Roblox only banned user-to-user messaging outside of games for users under 13. It contends adults can still message children in public chats while playing games.
Content on the platform
The complaint also accuses Roblox of trivializing sexual misconduct by allowing hundreds of user-created games referencing Sean "Diddy" Combs. It says more than 900 user accounts referenced Jeffrey Epstein, and that one game was titled "Escape to Epstein Island." The Review-Journal noted Roblox has regularly appeared on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation's Dirty Dozen List.
The Nevada connection
Earlier this year, Roblox settled a lawsuit brought by the Nevada Attorney General's Office, agreeing to pay $12.5 million and add child safeguards, the Review-Journal reported. Attorney General Aaron Ford said at the time that the protections included verifying the ages of all Nevada users, barring minors from encrypted messaging and limiting who they can communicate with.
The new complaint was filed by the Doe plaintiffs and is separate from the state's case, which ended in that settlement. Readers can find related reporting in our public safety coverage.
Roblox's response and other cases
The Review-Journal's report did not include a company response to this specific filing. In response to a separate lawsuit filed in June, Roblox spokesperson Chloe Srivastava previously told the newspaper that "criminal behavior has no place" on the platform.
Before Wednesday's filing, Roblox already faced hundreds of child-exploitation lawsuits across several local, state and federal dockets, according to the Review-Journal. The plaintiffs' attorneys in the Las Vegas complaint referenced an April 2025 arrest of a California man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl he met on the platform.
The Review-Journal separately listed other more recent arrests tied to the platform. Among them, a New York man was federally charged with enticement and possession of child pornography after connecting with teenage girls on Roblox, the newspaper reported.
What to watch next
- How Roblox responds to the Mary and John Doe complaint in Las Vegas District Court.
- The hundreds of other child-exploitation lawsuits Roblox faces across local, state and federal dockets.
- Whether the conduct described in the complaint leads to criminal charges; the lawsuit did not say, according to the Review-Journal.
