CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. (KSNT) – A Georgia man accused of using an online game to traffick and rape a Topeka 13-year-old is facing additional charges, including one filed almost 15 years ago.
Clayton County police arrested Howard L. Graham, 33, at the beginning of March. The department said in a press conference that Graham drove around 13 hours from Georgia to Topeka to pick the teen up on Feb. 20. Graham and the teen had only met on the computer game Roblox the previous Friday, Feb. 18, before he convinced her to run away from home.
The Clayton County Police Department previously told KSNT 27 News that Graham would be charged in Topeka, but no court filings against him exist in the Shawnee County District Court. Now, it appears to be being handled in Georgia, as 27 News has obtained documents from the Clayton County Magistrate Court showing he will go to trial there for seven different felony offenses, including:
- Rape
- Statutory rape
- Sexual exploitation of a child
- Interference with custody
- Cruelty to children in the first degree
- Aggravated child molestation
- Human trafficking of persons for labor or servitude
The court records also showed he is facing an additional charge of possession of child pornography on his computer, indicating authorities found the content while serving an arrest warrant against him. The CCPD previously said in its press conference that it took Graham into custody at his workplace shortly after also finding the teen he took.
“It was quite pleasurable to see the reaction on his face, because he didn’t know we knew who he was,” the CCPD spokesperson said.
A separate case filing in Clayton County Magistrate Court showed that Graham had been a wanted person in Georgia since 2007. The state sent out a warrantless arrest affidavit for him on July 21 of that year. Like all of the recent charges from his March 2022 arrest, that case was marked as pending. However, all eight charges from his March arrest had a judge listed for trial, while the 2007 record did not.
The CCPD previously gave details about the trafficking incident in its press conference, saying that Graham brought the girl back to his residence and told his roommates she was his stepdaughter. They later found out through the teenager that this was not true.
“Between the time they got here on Sunday, and the Thursday night when she was released at the Dollar General, they had had sexual intercourse many times, and she finally had relayed that she wanted to go back home to one of the roommates,” the spokesperson said.
The court records showed that Graham already had a preliminary hearing with a judge in Clayton County Magistrate Court on April 25. That resulted in an order for continuance, so Graham will have an additional preliminary hearing over Zoom on June 1.
A Roblox spokesperson previously gave KSNT 27 News’ sister station in Georgia, WJBF, this statement about the incident:
“We were deeply saddened to hear about this case. There is nothing more important to parents — including the many parents who work at Roblox — than ensuring that children are safe when they learn and play, online or off. We work tirelessly to prevent grooming on our platform. We have stringent safety systems and a team of thousands of moderators who enforce a strict set of community standards on Roblox, including zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind. While we have not been contacted by authorities about this case, we always cooperate with law enforcement requests and promptly report any suspect behavior to relevant organizations such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States.”
Roblox Spokesperson
