Court must reconsider party mom's bail request
A Los Gatos woman jailed since October on charges of hosting liquorfueled parties for her teen son and his classmates, where some kids were injured and girls allegedly sexually assaulted, will get another shot at bail.
A Santa Clara County judge in February denied bail for Shannon O'Connor after prosecutors argued she remains a threat to the teen victims, their families and the broader community as well as a risk to fleeing justice. In April, the 6th District Court of Appeal summarily dismissed her appeal.
But on Wednesday, the California Supreme Court ordered the 6th District to reconsider whether O'Connor is entitled to bail on the grounds that she has not been charged with felony acts of violence or sexual assault.
But she may not be checking out of the county lockup soon. If the appellate court upholds her eligibility for bail, prosecutors could appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court. And if her bail eligibility stands, the Superior Court judge would have to schedule a hearing to decide what her bail amount should be.
On June 24, a court granted her lawyer's request to postpone entering a plea in the case until Sept. 30, which prosecutors did not oppose. Outside of court after the brief hearing, her lawyer, Brian Madden, said “she's doing as well as can be expected.”
“However,” he continued, “conditions in the county jail as a result of COVID are very difficult.”
Prosecutors had no comment.
O'Connor faces 39 charges, including felony child endangerment and misdemeanor furnishing liquor to minors, child molestation and sexual battery in connection with the parties she allegedly arranged or hosted for her son when he was a high school freshman.
At her bail hearing in February, teen girls who attended the parties told Judge Johnny Gogo that they feared O'Connor would menace them once she was freed. One tearfully testified that “she robbed me of my innocence.”
According to court filings by prosecutors, O'Connor arranged for the teens to sneak out of their homes at night without telling their parents. “After the children were drunk on the alcohol she provided, she encouraged them to engage in sexual activity with each other,” prosecutors alleged, and “even facilitated the sexual encounters, some consensual and some nonconsensual.”
Prosecutors and Madden disputed whether the felony child endangerment charges involved acts of violence, a key to withholding bail. Judge Gogo, in denying bail in February, called it “a very extraordinary case.”