Around 93% of kids play video games, 40% on a daily basis for an average of 1.5-2 hours.
But online gaming offers more than action-packed battle royales, creative narratives, and striking visuals; it connects players to a global network of strangers.
There’s little oversight, vetting, and verification of gaming profiles, and in certain cases, it can lead to sinister outcomes, as recently displayed in a case where a 28-year-old New Hampshire man, Benjamin Hart, groomed a 10-year-old Washington Parish boy into a sexually abusive relationship.
As per the 22nd Judicial District Attorney website, "District Attorney Collin Sims reports that on May 20, 2025, 28-year-old Benjamin Hart was sentenced to 135 years in prison for the sexual exploitation of a young boy from Washington Parish. In April, following a four-day trial, a Washington Parish jury found Hart guilty on charges of Sexual Battery of a Juvenile Under the Age of 13, Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, and Computer Aided Solicitation of a Juvenile Under the Age of 13. The jury returned its verdict after just 20 minutes of deliberation."
WWL’s Dave Cohen spoke with Collin Sims, District Attorney for Washington and St. Tammany Parish, who shared further details on how this happened and what parents should understand to prevent online predators from reaching their children.
“In this particular case, you had a truck driver who not only did it here (Washington Parish), but also in the Vermont and New Hampshire area,” said Sims. “He would communicate with kids through a gaming system. One child in the Northeast was an NHL Xbox game to communicate and then start messaging and befriending them.”
Sims explains that Benjamin Hart first contacted the 10-year-old Washington Parish boy through an in-game Xbox chat before transitioning the conversation to Snapchat. From there, the Hart sent the child sexually explicit images, which eventually led to the trucker driving from New Hampshire to Washington Parish multiple times throughout the span of two years, where he would commit sexual acts with the child, mostly inside the cab of his 18-wheeler.
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“He's got a mobile...molestation facility,” says Sims. “With this particular child, he's not going to come until he has established a relationship long enough, and now there's a trust built.
To build trust, Sims explains that it starts with offering gifts, “Hey, I'm sending you these gifts. Hey, let's meet. I hope you're enjoying the game system. Hey, how did you spend that money? Hey, I'm going to come and now there's an offer of something more extravagant. And so this continues to build."
Sims also says that parental neglect can contribute to the child being more likely to give trust blindly.
“This person is paying some attention that the parents didn't pay," says Sims. “It's called grooming behavior. Sometimes, some people obviously pretend to be someone totally different. You'd be talking to a forty-five-year-old male who's presenting themselves to be a fifteen-year-old little girl... next thing you know, you're sending things that identify your location.”
So, what's being done to combat online predatory behavior?
“Age verification,” says Sims. “It’s actually a very good time to talk about this because there are two bills floating around the legislature right now. That would help arm parents with additional tools to know when someone's trying to communicate with your child online.”
However, although legislation is in the works, Sims says that online sexual abuse prevention is a massive effort, and abusers continuously pursue and update tactics to thwart law enforcement.
“It’s nonstop, all-out, 24-hour assault looking for children online, how to exploit them, whether it be through images, whether it'd be through personal contact, and your child sometimes won't even know,” says Sims. “They'll pose as someone that your child knows. You may glance at the contact and think that it's someone your child knows, but it's some guy who's in his 40s posing as that person. They're very sophisticated and they don't stop.”
Although encountering dangerous strangers is always a likelihood in online settings, Sims reminds listeners that in his work as DA, abuse is far more likely to occur through people children already know and trust.
“90% of those kids were abused by someone they know, a friend, a relative, a friend of a friend. It's not always that traditional stranger danger. The majority is someone you know. So you really have to pay attention, and it's easy to trust friends' sleepovers, and I don't want to scare everyone, but that's what we see.”
Protecting children ultimately comes down to parental awareness and understanding what they can do and what tools are in place to protect children from harm. One place to start is at cachopehouse.org, where parents and concerned adults can enroll in prevention training.
“There's a lot of helpful information," says Sims. "They put on an entire training for parents…please use them as a resource. They put on phenomenal trainings for parents, educators, or anyone who deals with kids.”
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