Arizona Man Gets 21 Years After Using Roblox, Discord to Groom Children

A 21-year-old Goodyear man was sentenced to 21 years in prison in a Roblox Discord grooming case involving three children who lived in three different states.

Richard Billingsley will also serve lifetime supervised probation once the prison term ends, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said Monday, August 31, 2026. Prosecutors said he contacted the children on Roblox, persuaded them to move the conversations to Discord, and over several months coerced them into sending sexually explicit photos and videos. The victims were 12 and 13 years old.

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The Roblox Discord Grooming Case Began With a CyberTip

Goodyear Police received a CyberTip in August 2025 from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. It concerned a user who had uploaded child sexual abuse material to Discord. Police identified that user as Billingsley.

Officers searched his devices and found more than 3,400 CSAM files, according to the county attorney’s release.

Detectives also learned Billingsley had been communicating with three children over a period of several months.

Prosecutors Say Victims Were First Contacted on Roblox

The Roblox Discord grooming began on the game platform, prosecutors said, and moved from there. Billingsley met the children on Roblox and convinced them to continue the conversations on Discord.

Over several months, according to the county attorney’s office, he groomed and coerced them into sending him sexually explicit photos and videos.

The victims were 12 and 13. They lived in North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas, well outside the county where the case was prosecuted.

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Billingsley Pleaded Guilty to Three Counts

The Roblox Discord grooming charges did not go to trial.

Billingsley pleaded guilty to one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, a Class 2 felony and Dangerous Crime Against Children, and to two counts of Attempted Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, both Class 3 felonies and Dangerous Crimes Against Children.

County Attorney Rachel Mitchell credited Goodyear police with locating the victims and sex crimes prosecutor William Heydenreich with holding Billingsley accountable. Their work stopped him before he could cause further harm, she said.

Mitchell said online predators are manipulative and persistent, and that grooming can happen on any app where users can send messages. She asked parents to talk with their children about online dangers regularly and to check the devices they use.

Online Grooming Moves Between Platforms

Investigators described a two-step pattern in this case. Contact started inside a game and then moved to a private messaging app.

That pattern is not confined to gaming. NCMEC’s CyberTipline received roughly 1.4 million reports concerning online enticement in 2025, including more than 80,000 involving sextortion. NCMEC says this type of exploitation happens on gaming platforms, social networks and messaging apps.

For parents, the request to switch apps is the part worth asking about. A child being urged by someone they met in a game to keep talking somewhere more private is being asked to take the same step described in the Roblox Discord grooming timeline here. On its own it proves nothing.

Roblox and Discord Child Safety Rules Have Changed

Roblox child safety rules have changed considerably since August 2025.

In January 2026, the company began requiring an age check before users could access chat globally, along with age-based settings intended to limit contact between adults and users under 16. In June 2026, Roblox made its age-based Kids and Select accounts available worldwide and said users who have not completed an age check cannot use chat.

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Both changes came after the investigation started. Neither has been tied to the Roblox Discord grooming case, and there is no evidence Roblox introduced them in response to it.

Discord’s child safety policy states zero tolerance for grooming and the sexual exploitation of minors. Users involved in that conduct are permanently banned, and the company reports illegal CSAM and grooming to NCMEC. Discord also does not allow children under 13 to hold accounts. The county attorney’s release does not say which of the three victims were 12 and which were 13, or how their Discord accounts were created.

The Roblox Discord grooming case ended with a 21-year sentence and lifetime probation. Mitchell asked parents to keep asking their children who they are talking to online.