Online gamer accused of sexually assaulting underage girl, buying her Plan B after condom broke

Warning: graphic content

A Florida man is in custody after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl he met through the online game Fortnite.

According to reports, Dillon Atkinson, 26, was arrested on December 29 and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior or lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 16 years old — the Floridian law equivalent of statutory rape — after the alleged victim's parents made disturbing accusations.

The father of the victim claimed that he had recently confiscated his daughter's school-issued Google Chromebook, where he discovered that she had been having apparently inappropriate chats with a person with the email address dillon_atkinson@icloud.com. When confronted about the messages, the girl admitted that she had been having a "sexual relationship" with Atkinson for the past two weeks, the affidavit stated.

The victim told her parents that she and Atkinson had met last July through the online video game Fortnite. Their friendship eventually "turned romantic in nature," the affidavit alleged, and the two then began corresponding on Discord, a communications app. The victim supposedly admitted that both of their ages had been made known to one another during their correspondence.

Their first sexual encounter supposedly occurred sometime in early or mid-December, when the suspect picked the victim up from school. He then drove her to the dead end of a street, where he "penetrated her vagina, her anus, and her mouth with his penis," the victim reported.

During their second sexual encounter, which supposedly occurred on December 21, the condom that the suspect had been using broke. So he drove to a local drug store and "purchased Plan B, and gave it to the victim as a precaution," the police report stated. The two supposedly had a third sexual encounter just days before Atkinson was arrested.

When brought in for questioning, Atkinson, who had been advised of his Miranda rights, supposedly agreed to speak with police without an attorney present. During that conversation, Atkinson allegedly confessed to the sexual relationship with the victim. According to the affidavit, Atkinson believed that the victim was "sixteen years old" and that he had been confused about the age of consent in Florida. The age of consent in that state is 18.

Atkinson "appeared to be extremely remorseful of his actions," the police report noted.

He is being held at a Lee County detention facility on $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on January 30.

Fortnite's developer, Epic Games, issued a statement following Atkinson's arrest: "We take reports about the safety of our players seriously and thoroughly investigate them, including working directly with local law enforcement to take action."