Law&Crime Sidebar - Roblox Branded a ‘Hunting Ground’ for Pedophiles in Graphic Lawsuits

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

Is the popular gaming platform Roblox a safe haven for sexual predators? That’s the allegation in new lawsuits against the company on behalf of several minors who claim they were abused and exploited thanks to the platform’s lax protocols. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber and former prosecutor and host of Resident Legal Diva Melba Pearson sat down to discuss a recent Florida case connected to Roblox, details from the lawsuits, and how the company is responding.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Grow your own audience today – go to https://www.opus.pro/sidebar for 1 week free plus 50% off the 3 months of Opus Pro. HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I find there's probable cause to believe that the following laws have been violated. Possession of child pornography. Is there an epidemic of sexual predators using the game Roblox to prey on children? That's the accusation in lawsuits that are pouring in from all across the country. Some of behalf of alleged victims who were as young as eight years old when they say they were exploited through the game. And these latest complaints come as police are busting more and more

apparent sexual predators who they say contacted their victims inside Roblox. We're taking a look at one of those recent arrests, the disgusting details revealed in an interview with police, and the connections between ongoing cases and these new lawsuits. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law on crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Even if you're not a gamer, you have likely heard. of Roblox, right? The game platform that was created in 2004, was launched publicly in 2006, but it really took off during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's when kids and teens, they were stuck at home. They took to the internet to communicate. In 2020, the company told the Verge that more than half of Americans under the age of 16 were playing games created by themselves

or others on Roblox. The platform hosts millions and millions of users that you can interact with any time. But those interactions aren't always positive. Alleged victims and their families have come forward from all over the country accusing Roblox of fostering an environment that allowed child sexual exploitation to flourish. According to one of the federal lawsuits that's at stake here, Roblox is easily accessible, including to children as young as six years old. It is free to download and play and is available on gaming consoles, computers, tablets, and cellular devices. An account can easily be set up by a child in a matter of minutes without a parent. This is an entire virtual world where users can create an avatar that they can use to participate in millions of different

games and groups referred to as experiences. And with much of its branding geared toward children and teens, it's easy to see how potential predators would kind of have a sea of potential victims to choose from, right? And Roblox is now at the center of a Florida child sexual abuse case with some of the most disturbing details that we have ever heard. Now, I'm not going to get into all of this alone. I want to bring on Melba Pearson back onto Sidebar. Always love seeing Melba, civil rights attorney, criminal law attorney, former prosecutor, host of Resident Legal Diva on YouTube.

Everybody can not check it out. So Melba, there have been concerns about online predators since the birth of the Internet. These lawsuits, though, they really push Roblox directly into the spotlight, right? I mean, what are you taking away from them? Well, always good to see you and be on with you, Jesse. And one of the key things is about how we're navigating this, you know, new kind of brave new world with, you know, we saw recently a lawsuit against chat GPT, OpenAI, in terms of guiding a young person to unalive themselves. So, you know, there's this whole debate about how responsible social media platforms and these other kind of gaming platforms should be in terms of criminal activities. How should they be cracking down?

And how does that intersect with your First Amendment right in terms of privacy, in terms of being able to talk and interact with people, however you see fit? So there's a very fine line. But again, these corporations have to figure out how to keep people on their platform safe. That is a non-negotiable. So let's talk about this. I want to go back to April of this year. And it's very early in the morning.

It's just before first light. And Marion County investigators have a search warrant to present to 17. year old Christian Scribbin. Now Scribin, his father and his brother, they were woken up, they were brought outside, they were all handcuffed, and a deputy read the entire search warrant to them, giving them an idea of what all these law enforcement officers were doing in the apartment complex's parking lot. Based upon the facts set forth from the affidavit, I find there is probable cause to believe that at the below described location to be searched, there will be found an instrumentality or means by which a felony has been committed,

where evidence relevant to providing said felony has been committed. To it, child pornography in physical or digital form. The search warrant authorizes the search of the above location and includes the dwelling slash residence, all outbuildings and vehicles located on the curtilage, and any person who is known or reasonably believed to be engaged in or connected with the illegal activity that is the subject of the search warrant.

Personal computer hardware, i.e. person computers, laptops, notebooks, mobile electronic devices, i.e. tablets, smartphones, e-readers, gaming devices, game consoles, i.e. PlayStation, Xbox, etc. Yeah, so that search warrant tells us a lot about this alleged crime. And the probable cause affidavit that was filed with the court by Ameren County detective provides more information. And Melba, I want to break down the different revelations in this with you. So, quote, in February of 2025, numerous incidents were reported on the Roblox application of a suspect going by Lost Shadow and Christian directing children to molest their younger siblings in a vile manner and produce child sexual abuse material.

So Melba, right off the bat, heinous allegations and not only is Scribin accused of having the sick interest in minors, but he allegedly convinced those minors to inflict abuse on their own brothers and sisters. First of all, I was just horrified when I read these allegations. And again, it really comes back to the importance of the parents understanding where their kids are spending their time. Now, Jesse, not to date myself back in the day, I remember the commercial like, it's 8 p.m. Do you know where your children are, right? And that was in terms of, do you physically know where your kids are? Are they playing in the street, whatever the case may be? Now in 2025, it's not about physically where your child is.

It's where they are in cyberspace, where they are on the internet, and who are they interacting with? And it's very important for parents. And of course, I'm not blaming the parents here. That's not at all what's happening. But I just want to use this as a teaching moment that parents should have parental controls on the various applications that their kids are using. They should be aware of what applications their kids are using, what games they're playing.

they should be warning their kids in terms of, listen, if anyone's telling you to take your clothes off, to touch yourself, to touch someone else, that's not okay. Tell me, tell a teacher, tell a counselor, really empower kids to know that, listen, this behavior is not okay and empower them to be able to push back. Luckily, these kids have come up and told their parents because, of course, we wouldn't be here if they hadn't done that. But sadly, these kids were victimized in the process. So I really want to use this as a teaching moment for parents and aunties, whoever, uncles, to be vigilant in terms of where your kids are in cyberspace. By the way, talking video like this, let me tell you, we here at Sidebar, we produce so many video clips a day, and we use a platform called OpusClip that may be very interesting to you because it's an all-in-one AI editor that makes it easier and faster to cut, create, and upload videos across all social media platforms.

Through the power of AI, Opus Clip automatically generates B-Rill, it cleans up audio, and it reframes your videos for any platform. OpusClip is so easy to start using. I'm going to show you how right now. All you got to do is go to Opus.combeau slash sidebar, sign up, and then you upload a video. In just a few minutes, you'll have tons of perfectly edited clips ready to go. So whether you're making videos for TikTok, shorts, Instagram Reels, Opus Clip is your one-stop shop for getting your best content seen by more viewers across all these platforms with literally the press of just one by. button. And if you're wondering how good these AI edited videos are from Opus Clip, just look at our content here at Long Crime. Our producers have used Opus to help us cut and share clips of some of our most major trials. And having a tool like Opus Clip means we can get you even more

viral updates from inside the courtroom faster than ever before. At Sidebar, we know our listeners have a lot of opinions and ideas to share. And this is the most powerful tool there is to help you edit like a pro and grow your own audience. So give it a try for yourself. Go to opus.com pro slash sidebar to start creating your own videos today. Now, once Scribbin had been read his rights, he quickly confirmed a lot of the information that deputies needed to connect him to these cyber tips. So post-Miranda, quote,

I spoke with suspect Christian Scribun. He provided me the phone number, an email address that were his. They matched the information provided by Roblox on the suspect account. He also admitted to his old Roblox account being shut down around the time that Roblox reported him

to the National Center for Missing and Exploited children. He has since created a new account. Now, it's a couple of important things to note here, Melba. So first, that Roblox apparently reported Scribun, right, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, shut down his account. Second, that he was able to turn around and just create a new one. Good, good on Roblox in terms of being proactive. The minute they saw there was a problem, they shut down the account. They reported him to law enforcement appropriately. But again, that's on Roblox to figure out their algorithms or whatever is needed, their coding, whatever, to be able to prevent someone who has been banned from the platform for coming back.

Of course, again, it becomes difficult in terms of you just get another email address or you use a virtual phone number or something like that to be able to get a new account on the platform. But again, that's going to be on the Roblox engineers to figure out how they can track when someone's been blocked, whether it's by their IP address, whatever, figure out a way to ensure, because again, this is not my area of expertise, but the smart folks at Roblox can figure out how to make sure that once someone is banned, they're banned for life, and they can't just come back with a different screen name, a different handle, or a different email address. And you think about the digital evidence being, you know, quite compelling.

The deputies who were at this apartment complex, you know, they spoke with Scribans' father. And apparently he acknowledged that it could be his son who was involved in this sort of activity. Now, if that's true, Malba, how critical is it to have someone offering up potentially corroborating information, especially someone who is so close to the accused? That would be huge, but my question would be, is he thinking it's his son based on just kind of like he's been acting strangely lately or something like that? Or does he know that his son has always had a predilection? towards children.

And if he's known that, now we're looking at him in terms of liability because if you know your child has been engaging in criminal activity, if you know your child has been abusing people and you just kind of turn a blind eye to it, we saw in the crumbly case,

how the parents got pulled in in terms of their child ended up bringing a gun to school and horrible things ended up happening. But again, they knew that their child had issues and they did not take steps to ensure the safety of everyone else. And so this same scenario could play out with his father if he had some inkling that his son was molesting people. If he just thought his son was acting strangely and now based on what

law enforcement is telling him he's putting two and two together, that's a different scenario altogether. And of course, that would be incredibly beneficial for the prosecution when they're putting their case together. And during an interview, with the detective Scribin himself reportedly revealed sickening details about his daily habit of searching out children. Some of them as young as just eight years old. He admitted to proactively searching for children nearly every day on the Roblox application. He would direct them to produce child sexual abuse material. Christian described a compulsion to exploit children online so that he could obtain sexual gratification from the child sexual abuse material they produced

at his direction. He had tried several times to stop but was unable to. He described the number of children he would do this with as being approximately four to five a day every day for the past year. So Melba, the sheer number of possible victims out there is hard to even imagine. We're talking thousands, thousands of children that have been traumatized, that now are going to have to go to therapy to be able to unpack the horrors of what they dealt with. And that's something that's going to be popping up in their psyche over the course of the next few decades. So I think a lot of steps are going to have to be taken to make sure these kids are okay and that these kids don't end up having issues moving forward as a result of the trauma that

they suffered. You know, and on the same token, again, I mean, this is a sickness. This is truly an illness. This, you know, we could ask questions as to whether or not the defendant was a survivor of abuse himself, you know, how did this happen? And we're going to keep asking those questions because it's hard for our minds to even fathom that someone would do this, especially at such a young age. But again, this is the opportunity for not only law enforcement to intervene, but the criminal justice system and to make sure that he does not harm another child again. Now, the question is, how was he able to do this, right? So according to the probable cause statement, Scribin would reportedly start speaking with a minor on Roblox,

lying about his own age, that's the allegation, saying that he was one or two years younger, and then quickly moved the conversation to text messages. And get this? Quote, a preliminary search of Christian's phone revealed that he was speaking with a female over text just hours before the search warrant was executed. He continuously directed her to take pictures of herself, which escalated in nature as the conversation went on. Though none of the media sent meets the statutory criteria of child pornography, the escalating and grooming nature of the conversation further corroborates the reported data from Roblox, as well as Christian's own admissions.

He later admitted the girl to be 13 to 14 years old, and he stated he was not going to continue with her because he, quote, lost interest. The deputies say that Scribans' phone bore out the theory that he was hypervigilant about deleting conversations and images. The search found that the only text on Scribans' phone were between. himself and family members and the conversation with the teen, which he apparently hadn't had a chance to delete yet. Now, according to investigators, Scribun initially said he didn't think that what he was doing is a big deal because he was under 18 and claimed he would try to stop once he reached his 18th birthday. But when a detective reiterated exactly what Christian had allegedly been asking children to do, he reportedly said that he should face the

juvenile system, not the adult jail. So Melba, yeah, Scribin was. under 18 when a lot of this happened. That's not a viable defense, though, right? No, it is not. Because, again, he had the intent. There's no accident here. He knew that these kids were underage. He sought them out specifically for that purpose.

He encouraged them to create child pornography. And he received said child pornography and used it for his purposes. So, you know, and the whole, I'm going to stop when I'm 18. This is not like I'm going to. stop eating carbs by Monday, right? Like, it's just not, you can't turn it on and off just like that. This is truly an illness, and he needs therapy and, you know, intensive services in order to break that addiction, that sickness. This is not something he could just handle on his own or his parents can help him through it. This is going to require serious medical intervention.

So there's that aspect. So in Florida, he's not going to face the juvenile system. He'll be charged as an adult, because again, at the age of 17, we do have that option to be able to charge a juvenile as an adult under certain circumstances and with certain charges. So these would all fall into that category. And so he's going to face the adult system. He's facing a maximum of 15 years in prison on each count. And let's be clear, each video, each photo could be a separate count. It's all dependent on the way that the prosecutor wants to

charge you. So if he's had a thousand of these incidences in the last year, and we have substantiated evidence for that, it could literally be an indictment with, or an information, as we call it, with a thousand charges, each of them

facing a maximum of 15 years. Clearly that would make things a little hectic in court, but you know, we have seen 10 20, 30 separate charges for these types of cases. Now, Scribbin was originally taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice, but he was later upgraded to adult court. He was taken to the Marion County Jail where he's being held without bond.

And he faces three charges right now, use of a computer to seduce, solicit, or lure a child, a lawful use of two-way communications device to facilitate, directing, or promoting sexual performance by a child. And his next court date is scheduled for next week. it's a pretrial conference before jury selection is set to begin. This case, by the way, I will tell you, has eerie similarities to what we want to talk about next. Multiple lawsuits that were filed since July against the Roblox Corporation, claiming that the platform is complicit in the abuse of minors. And many of the lawsuits name a secondary app alongside Roblox. So, for

example, a federal complaint that was filed by a Michigan 11-year-old's family named Discord. Discord, Inc., the online platform geared toward gamers, and then you have a lawsuit out of Pennsylvania on behalf of a 12-year-old girl who named Snap Inc. That's the parent company of Snapchat. So that suit references a study that was done by Hindenberg Research and published in October 2024. It's titled Roblox, Inflated Key Metrics for Wall Street, and a pedophile healthscape for kids. That research includes a quote from a former employee, which the plaintiffs use as part of

their argument that Roblox put profit above safety. And it says, the reason for defendants on lawful conduct is simple. Defendants prioritize growing the number of users of their products over child safety. As one former Roblox employee explained in describing the company's approach to child safety, you have to make a decision, right? You can keep your players safe, but then it 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.

Snap has taken the same approach to child safety on its product. Defendant's prioritization of growth over the safety of children has devastated the lives of children who use their products, including plaintiff. And it's not just communications that eventually move to other apps that are ringing alarm bells. It's the in-app activity as well. For example, the lawsuit states, simulated sexual activity pervades the Roblox product as defendant Roblox well knows. There have been numerous reports of children's avatars being raped by other user's avatars. For example, in 2018, a 7-year-old girl's avatar was violently raped by two male avatars on a playground in a Roblox experience, which was witnessed by the girl's mother. Now, Roblox has also been called out for what I mentioned before, its experiences, which are less about games and more of kind of the allegation being a virtual peep show.

Reading from the lawsuit, they can also play games like public bathroom simulator vibe, which allows access to users as young as nine years old. And this enables users to simulate sexual activity in virtual bathrooms as well as virtual strip clubs where child avatars perform sexually explicit acts like giving lap dances to patrons. Melba, this is not Super Mario anymore. I mean, what is going on here? It's insane that this type of conduct, this type of content wouldn't be immediately removed. There seems to be grounds for this lawsuit, right? or these lawsuits? Absolutely, and I can tell you right now what's going to happen,

Roblox is going to start cutting a whole bunch of checks because they're going to have to settle. There is no way that they are going to be able to take this into a court of law and go to trial and think that they're going to prevail. It's not happening. So the question is, how much money are they going to pay each of these families? And more importantly, what steps are they going to take to make sure that children are safe on their platform?

and not only just children, adults. Because if you happen to be someone that's a gamer, and we've also seen these stories about how female gamers are, again, having these violent things happen to their avatars and all of that. And that is something, again, that's traumatizing and is, you know, can leave the same scars as an encounter of the same nature in real life. Because, again, your sense of safety is compromised, who's been violated and all of that.

it's on Roblox to moving forward make sure that this does not happen again. And they have to fix it. And now they've learned the hard way that you can't put profits over people. And by the way, it doesn't stop there because the virtual tends to reflect what's dominating headlines in the real world. Quote, a recent investigative report also exposed a multitude of other exploitative experiences on Roblox that recklessly trivialize and gamify serious criminal conduct, including rape. The report confirmed that defendant Roblox actively hosted over 600 Diddy games with titles like Survive Diddy, Run from Diddy Simulator, and Diddy Party, which appeared to recreate

reported incidents involving the music mogul Sean Combs, publicly known as Diddy. Another lawsuit, this one involving the alleged victimization of a 12-year-old New York. York Girl, explain why this can be so harmful, quote, the effects of these games on children can be devastating. Playing video games with explicit sexual content normalizes exploitative and predatory behavior, blurring the lines of what is acceptable in real life. This is particularly harmful for children who are still developing their understanding of social norms and morality. When such behavior is depicted as humorous, exciting, or rewarded within a game, young players can internalize the idea that harassment or sexual exploitation is harmless or even acceptable.

So Melba, this has been part of the child wellness conversation for years. And any time you have a developing brain that is immersed in something good or bad, it can have a huge impact. How do you prove the claim, right, that a heavily sexualized environment affected a child's upbringing? If we're talking about causation, if we're talking about harm, is that going to be difficult in this? these in litigation? It won't be that difficult from the standpoint of this is where you bring in expert witnesses. And so when you have these victims, these survivors that are now in therapy, you'd have

the ability for an expert to come on and talk about, listen, these are the types of lasting effects that this type of trauma can have on a child's brain. You will see a higher rate of truancy. you may see drug use, you may see aggressive behavior, you may see depression, all of these different aspects. And of course, the parents can attest to the changes in the behavior that they've seen in their child before this horrible encounter and afterwards. So all of these aspects are going to be important in proving a case. And again, that type of testimony is going to break a jury's heart, which would result in a huge verdict against Roblo.

And of course, this alleged abuse doesn't just stay in the virtual world, according to a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of a boy who was just 11 years old when his alleged exploitation began. He was actually kidnapped. The lawsuit says that Texas 11-year-old had recently moved and didn't have friends at his new school. So he leaned heavily on Roblox, you know, as a way to socialize. And he thought he was talking to another child when that person started asking for things like nude photos. That complaint reads, plaintiff traveled to the perpetrator's home. and when he arrived, he learned for the first time that the individual he had been chatting with was not a minor child like he was, but an adult man in his 30s.

There was pornography playing on the television, and the perpetrator removed his clothing and then coerced plaintiff to remove his. Plaintiff was subjected to horrific sexual abuse and molestation by the adult perpetrator, predator, until he was eventually able to escape. So how is Roblox responding to these allegations? Well, typically corporations won't respond to litigation while it's ongoing, but Roblox staff published a blog post on its website on August 15th in response to a lawsuit that was filed in Louisiana. But maybe that could apply to all the complaints because it says every day tens of millions of people around the world use Roblox to learn stem skills, play, and imagine and have a safe experience on our platform.

Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue. No system is perfect and bad actors adapt to evade detection, including efforts to take users to other platforms. where safety standards and moderation practices may differ. We continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users. The company also posted an article titled clarifying our policy on romantic and sexual content, expanding policies to help younger users have better experiences on Roblox. So according to the company, it is updating its terms of service to not include a ban on an implied sexual activity, and it says it has plans to add maturity ratings.

maturity ratings to experiences. Also, certain social hangouts will be restricted to ID verified users 17 or older. What do you make of that response? You said before that they're going to have to write checks out, but are they seemingly defending themselves? Hey, putting in the appropriate safeguards, hey, we've done our best to try to moderate and try to protect unsafe behavior, but there are things that these people will do to evade detection. There's only so much we can control. Your response to their response so far. So, yes, it's a good thing that. that they are implementing more protocols in terms of age-verified rooms and all of that. But it's a little too little too late because, again, now you've had people that have been victimized

and it's not that it was unforeseeable. This is a little bit too little too late because now we still have thousands of victims. The fact that tens of millions of people weren't harmed, yeah, that's great. But what about those thousands of children that were harmed? And there were ways to prevent this from happening. And so, you know, I think at the end of the day, they will have to do a lot more. And this statement is not going to be enough to rehabilitate their image or anything alone, those lines. Yes, they will be seen as taking mitigation steps for the future, but that does not address what happened in the past. Melba Pearson, thank you so much for coming on talking about this, really, really disturbing stuff. But we'll continue to keep an eye on it. Thank you so

much. Thank you, Jesse. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, a podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.