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A San Ramon man is set to return to federal court this summer on child sex abuse charges alleged in a federal indictment earlier in the year and announced by the Department of Justice Monday.
Authorities allege that 28-year-old Ishaq Ikharo used internet gaming and chat platforms to “persuade, entice, and coerce” a total of nine children into engaging in sexual activity while he was on supervised release for an earlier conviction for possession of child pornography.
The nine alleged victims, all of whom were under 18 at the time of the incidents according to the DOJ, were born from 2007 to 2014 with the alleged crimes believed to have been committed between 2022 and 2024, according to the indictment filed Feb. 11.
Ikharo was sentenced to time served plus 10 years of supervised release after being convicted for possession of child pornography in a New York federal court in 2023.
Last year, his probation officer alleged in a petition for summons of person under supervision that was transferred to the California Northern District Court that there were grounds to believe he was violating the terms of his probation and supervision, which included prohibitions against using any internet-connected device without court supervision.
Those grounds include a 2024 FBI report in which a father reported that his son was being solicited for sex in an online game by someone with various user names that included “Shaq,” with correspondences also found via Snapchat, Discord, and text messages.
According to his probation officer and the courts, Ikharo also failed to register as a sex offender with the state registry as required as part of his supervised release, continued to use unauthorized devices for a variety of other purposes, and was resistant to in-person mental health treatment.
Federal authorities traced the username back to Ikharo via data shared by Discord and in subpoenas to Snap Inc. and Comcast, later conducting a forensic analysis of the victim’s phone and an interview with the child that corroborated findings last March.
His supervised release was suspended in a detention order issued May 14, 2025 that remanded him to the custody of the US Marshal Service to facilitate transportation to an Illinois detention center after determining that “no facility locally or in California” would accept him due to significant medical needs.
Ikharo has been in custody since June 30, 2025 according to the DOJ announcement Monday. The FBI’s San Francisco Division is currently working to identify any additional victims.
“The FBI believes that Ikharo, who generally went by ‘Shaq’ and possibly sometimes identified as a minor male or female, continued to primarily target minor boys through online video games and various online communication platforms from about April 2021 through about March 2025,” authorities wrote this week.
Anyone with additional information is asked to contact the FBI via this form.
The case is set for a status conference on July 30 at 9 a.m.
