OAKLAND — In a plea deal with Alameda County prosecutors, a Fremont man will serve 20 years in state prison for molesting a 12-year-old girl he’d been chatting with online, court records show.
Christian Shepard, 26, pleaded no contest to 16 sex crimes, including committing lewd acts upon a child, sending lewd material to a child and possession of media depicting child sexual abuse. He remains in Santa Rita Jail, pending a transfer to the state prison system.
Shepard’s plea deal was finalized earlier this month. He receives credit for the time spent behind bars since his arrest in 2022, when prosecutors accused him of grooming and arranging to meet a 12-year-old girl after the two made contact online.
The girl had been selling nude pictures of herself on Twitter for weeks — on an account with her real age publicly posted — when Shepard reached out to her and asked if they could talk on a private messaging app, police said. They arranged to meet outside the San Leandro Public Library in July 2022.
During the investigation, police say they uncovered hundreds of lewd pictures, videos and text messages from conversations between the two, including messages where he refers to her as “kiddo” and says he “can’t wait” to meet in person. It went on until the victim’s mother went through her phone and discovered the photos and videos, police said in court papers.
The two reportedly met up twice, and Shepard paid the girl with cash and the hallucinogen LSD, according to police. He was arrested shortly after the girl’s mother came forward.
