A 21-year-old Arlington man was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison Tuesday after admitting he used the online gaming platform Roblox to coerce a 10-year-old child into creating sexually explicit videos, and after driving repeatedly to Forney, Texas to pick up and sexually assault a 14-year-old girl. U.S. Senior District Judge Terry R. Means ordered the sentence to run consecutively to any punishment Badshah Sahi receives in his separate, still-pending state criminal case.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sahi pleaded guilty to the federal charges in April after Forney police first arrested him on February 28, 2025, for sexual assault of a child. Investigators said Sahi had repeatedly driven from his residence in Arlington to Forney to pick up the 14-year-old girl and transport her to multiple locations, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. A search of his phone turned up videos and images of a female child along with communications with other minors.
A Web of Victims Across Two Texas Cities
Court records described a pattern that extended well beyond Forney. The Star-Telegram's reporting notes that Sahi also communicated with a 15-year-old girl in San Marcos and traveled there to record himself sexually assaulting her. Separately, he used Roblox to coerce a 10-year-old child into creating and sending sexually explicit videos, even after that child disclosed their age to him in online chat logs, per the same report.
Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Antwoine Jones, who leads the agency's Dallas office, said Sahi was “recklessly released” into the country. U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, who leads the federal prosecutor's office for the region, said the lengthy sentence “sends a resounding message that child predators will find no safe harbor in the Northern District of Texas.”
Raybould said authorities “will find child predators and ensure they face the full weight of federal prosecution,” adding that “the commitment to protecting children is absolute.” The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas covers 96,000 square miles across 100 counties and serves roughly eight million residents, with staffed offices in Dallas, Fort Worth, Lubbock, Amarillo, and Abilene, according to the Department of Justice.
Afghan Evacuee Entered U.S. During 2021 Withdrawal
Sahi was released into the United States during the 2021 withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, the Star-Telegram reported. A September 2022 report from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, designated OIG-22-64, concluded that federal authorities lacked critical data and faced significant obstacles when screening, vetting, and inspecting Afghan evacuees paroled into the country during that withdrawal, according to CBS News.
The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to coordinate federal, state, and local law enforcement against internet child exploitation, with the effort spearheaded by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and Homeland Security Investigations, per the agency.
Roblox Faces Mounting National Scrutiny
Sahi's case adds to a growing list of prosecutions tied to predators using Roblox to make initial contact with children. Reports filed with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children regarding children targeted on the platform reached more than 65,000 in 2025, up from 24,500 in 2024 and just 675 in 2019, according to data cited in a March 2026 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing. More than 180 lawsuits alleging Roblox failed to protect children from online grooming have been consolidated into federal multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California, as Consumer Notice has reported.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed his own lawsuit against Roblox in November, alleging the company misrepresented its safety features and allowed predators to target minors statewide, as Hoodline previously reported. In a separate case, a 21-year-old man was charged.
