A 21-year-old Goodyear man was sentenced to 21 years in prison after confessing he contacted three pre-teen children on Roblox and then persuaded them onto Discord, where he forced them to share sexually explicit photos and videos. Richard Billingsley, born in September 2004, pled guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a juvenile and two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, and his punishment included lifetime supervised probation.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced the sentencing on August 31, 2026, and KTAR News 92.3 FM reported that the three victims lived in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Texas. The case was led by sex crimes prosecutor William Heydenreich. It stemmed from an investigation launched by the Goodyear Police Department in August 2025 after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a user who had uploaded child sexual abuse material to Discord, according to the county attorney’s office.
According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Billingsley sexually exploited youngsters he targeted via online gaming platforms, first initiating contact on Roblox and then directing the pre-teens, aged 12 and 13, into private talks on Discord. KTAR News 92.3 FM stated that a scan of his gadgets revealed more than 3,400 child sexual assault files. According to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, cyber predators are “master manipulators” who are “relentless in their search of a victim to exploit.”
Mitchell also warned that the danger is not limited to gaming apps. Grooming, she said, “can happen on any app where you can send messages” — a warning that corresponds to data cited by Thorn, which shows that roughly one in every four children aged 9 to 12 have been asked by a stranger to send nude photos, and that approximately 40% of minors have been approached online by someone attempting to manipulate them.
The 21-year sentence arises from Arizona’s strict sentencing guidelines for crimes against children. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-3553 and § 13-705, sexual exploitation of a minor involving a victim under 15 is classified as a Dangerous Crime Against Children, resulting in mandatory flat-time prison terms of 10 years per count with no eligibility for early release or probation, according to AZ Defenders. State law also requires that prison terms for numerous offenses be served consecutively rather than simultaneously, which explains why the case ended in a sentence of that duration.
To assist parents in identifying warning signs, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office provides a free online toolbox called Cyber Predators, Real Risks, which contains red-flag checklists, videos, and expert advice on how predators groom youngsters through gaming platforms and social media.
The tip that led to Billingsley’s arrest is a modest part of a much bigger national pattern. According to the Marin & Murphy Law Firm, Roblox submitted 65,381 suspected child sexual exploitation reports to NCMEC’s CyberTipline in 2025, more than doubling its submission of 24,522 allegations in 2024. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the number of reports of online child enticement sent to NCMEC’s CyberTipline increased by 158 percent from 2024 to 1,413,347 in 2025.
Some of this increase can be traced directly to federal policies. The REPORT Act, approved in 2024, requires electronic service providers to report internet enticement and child sex trafficking, with fines of up to $850,000 for a first offense and $1 million for subsequent infractions, according to Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s office. According to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, eight main platforms, including Roblox and Discord, would generate 81% of all CyberTipline reports in 2025, submitting more than 17 million reports of suspected exploitation combined.
Billingsley’s case also reflects the trend at the heart of a massive civil litigation campaign. Dozens of federal child exploitation lawsuits against Roblox have been consolidated in California federal court under multidistrict litigation, with plaintiffs alleging that predators routinely contact children on Roblox before redirecting them to apps like Discord because the platform’s safety features fail to prevent that off-platform migration, according to Marin & Murphy Law Firm. Hoodline has closely followed that legal battle, as well as other recent examples of grooming that began on Roblox.
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