A heartbroken mother is urging parents to remain vigilant after her daughter was sexually abused by a predator on Roblox. She hopes to prevent others from experiencing the nightmare that is affecting her family.
The U.S. Sun interviewed the family, who are dealing with the aftermath of their 11-year-old daughter being groomed and assaulted by someone she encountered on the popular online game, played by over 380 million users monthly.
“THEY’VE LIED SO MANY TIMES”
This distressing situation is part of a series of lawsuits against the Roblox Corporation filed by the Florida-based Dolman Group, which is handling nearly 400 individual cases.
Lead Attorney Matt Dolman calls the litigation an “ever evolving” battle against the exploitation and abuse of children on the platform.
Louisiana recently took legal action against Roblox, accusing the company of being a sanctuary for predators and placing profits above the safety of its users. A similar lawsuit has also been initiated in Iowa.
Roblox has publicly denied these allegations, calling the claim that it would intentionally endanger users “categorically untrue.”
The California based company stresses they are “constantly innovating safety tools” and launching new, rigorous safeguards.
Amidst recent criticism and unverified rumors about the game possibly shutting down next month, Roblox has been trialing a new age verification feature.
An AI system to detect early signs of child endangerment has also been launched, which it claims led to 1,200 reports in the first half of 2025.
Roblox say they process 50,000 chat messages per second, with almost 80 million daily users. That’s a lot of work for their 3,000 moderators.
To place that number into context, Tik-Tok, which has triple the users, have 40,000 screening the platform.
“Roblox has deceived us too many times,” Dolman retorted. “So no, I don’t believe the product is safe. I hope Roblox ceases to exist.”
In a harrowing interview with The U.S. Sun, the mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the horror of the April 2022 assault.
Predator Anthony Joshua Borgesano, who posed as a 15-year-old boy, initially contacted her daughter on Roblox before persuading her to move to Discord.
Once he had earned her trust, he traveled 85 miles across Florida and raped her.
A section of the lawsuit seen by The U.S. Sun states, “Eventually gaining her trust, the predator escalated his manipulations and encouraged Jane Doe R.M. to meet in-person.
SICKENING SITUATION
“Traveling from Orlando to Sebring, FL, in April 2022, the predator drove to Jane Doe R.M.’s grandfather’s house and lured her into his vehicle.
“The two drove to a nearby neighborhood where he violently raped and forced her to orally copulate him, causing inconceivable trauma, harm and devastation. The predator was subsequently convicted of his violent crimes.”
He was found guilty of four separate offences, and is currently serving four concurrent sentences – the longest is 25 years.
He has also been placed on the sex offender’s register and won’t be eligible for parole for 20 years.
“It definitely brutalized my child. It brutalized us as a family. We will never, ever be the same,” the mom said, her voice cracking.
Dolman, who describes Roblox as a “slimy company,” is adamant that profit is put before safety.
He only grasped the full extent of the danger last year after Bloomberg’s exposé, at which point he began hearing from parents “left and right” and realized the issue was “systemic” and “a lot worse than I ever thought.”
The report released 12 months ago – titled Roblox’s Pedophile Problem – says between 2018 and 204, police in the United States made at least two dozen arrests of people who have groomed, abducted and abused people they’ve met online.
As child users aren’t asked for email addresses or phone numbers, players remain anonymous, which make it easy for predators to lurk in the background.
Nevertheless, new age verification technology wasn’t rolled out until this July.
“Why has it taken them years to act and institute that?” Dolman argued. “They care more about shareholders and pumping up their stock than children who are exposed on their platform.”
He notes that while parents can turn off individual chat functions, the game still hosts disturbing content with titles like “Diddy Party,” “Survive Diddy,” and “Escape to Epstein Island,” which are highly inappropriate for young users.
PUSH FOR CHANGE
He wants Roblox to install stricter age recognition software to stop these incidents.
“We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users, and safety is a top priority,” a Roblox spokesperson told The U.S. Sun.
“We dedicate substantial resources, including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation, to help detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior, including attempts to direct users off platform, where safety standards and moderation may be less stringent than ours.”
They added while “no system is perfect”, the company are working with law enforcement and leading child safety organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children.
The mom, who was accompanied by her aunt, said she was thankful her daughter had the street smarts to turn on her phone locator after her abuser ordered her to turn it off.
My daughter, she’s not the first, and she won’t be the last if we don’t come together. This needs to stop.
Mom of daughter who was abused by Roblox predator in 2022
The predator, who was 20 at the time, built a relationship with her over several weeks before luring her away from home. “It was like something you see on TV that you never expect to happen to you,” the aunt said.
CONTINUING NIGHTMARE
Despite the authorities acting quickly, the trauma remains.
The mother said her daughter is suffering from severe mental anguish, is undergoing therapy and taking medication to cope. “She is not the same,” the mother admitted.
“I watched my daughter turn from this happy little girl to this depressed, dark person.”
Dolman hopes to get justice for the affected families, stating, “This isn’t some lawyer, sharing some trumped-up facts with you. This is countless arrests, law enforcement investigations into sexual predation, the abuse, the grooming, the exploitation of minors.
“They knew this, they did nothing about it, because they didn’t care.”
Dolman also stressed that many people unfairly place blame on parents when something goes wrong.
“They’re going to say the parents could have done a better job of parenting, that they should have been aware of what their kids are up to,” he noted, before adding bluntly, “frankly… that’s bullshit.”
He pointed out that Roblox, as a publicly traded company, has promoted its platform as safe for children over the age of six.
Because of that messaging, parents naturally expected their children would be protected.
The attorney compared the situation to hiring childcare. “You hire a babysitter, you vet that person carefully. You don’t expect them to invite their 26-year-old or 40-year-old boyfriend over to watch your kid with them,” he said.
“That’s what goes on every day on the Roblox platform. And there’s nobody to watch for these children.”
Blaming parents, he continued, ignored the real issue: a company had set up an unsafe system.
COUNTLESS VICTIMS
There have been swathes of incidents all across the United States in recent years. In 2021, a man from Madisonville, Tennessee pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl who later went missing in January 2019 and was found weeks later with a 32-year-old man in Wisconsin.
He had groomed her on Roblox, which has been banned in Qatar, Turkey, China and Oman.
Calls for their CEO David Baszucki to quit grow louder with every horrific incident.
In April this year, a 10-year-old child was reported missing from Taft, California.
According to authorities, she was found after being kidnapped by Matthew Macatuno Naval, a 27-year-old man who had been communicating through the game.
While the family has found some closure, they fear for others.
The mom claims there are “millions” of predators in the game daily.
Dolman, who only this week named Meta as a co-defendant in a case involving the “sexual exploitation” of a 14 year-old girl, hopes to have resolutions within the next 18 months.
“We have a responsibility – as parents, guardians, and citizens – to do everything in our power to safeguard our most vulnerable and defenseless communities,” said Dolman.
“Roblox and Meta have been allowed to operate anarchically, with no accountability, bringing nightmares to our doorsteps as they watch their valuations grow.”
“This isn’t an oversight,” the mom concluded angrily. “This isn’t a mistake. This is a complete systemic failure. And I want to see them held accountable.
“I want to protect all the children out there that are going through similar situations. My daughter’s not the first, and she won’t be the last if we don’t come together. This needs to stop.”
