Judge denies bail for ‘party mom’
A judge Feb. 3 denied bail for a mom accused of hosting binge-drinking parties for her high school freshman son and his friends in Los Gatos where, prosecutors say, teen girls were sexually assaulted in a case that shocked the South Bay.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Johnny Gogo’s decision came after hearing dramatic testimony from a teen victim and parents pleading that Shannon O’Connor not be allowed to go free before trial.
It was the second time in just over two weeks that the judge heard from one of the teens who said she would “feel incredibly unsettled” if O’Connor is allowed to post bail because of her “predatory acts.”
On Feb. 3, the judge also heard from O’Connor’s exhusband, who now lives in Texas with her older son, and told the judge how O’Connor and her current husband tried to hide the boy from him. The Bay Area News Group is not naming the ex-husband or the son because the boy is considered one of the 15 victims in the case.
“I know her,” the former husband said. “Shannon O’Connor is a menace to society.”
O’Connor’s lawyer, Brian Madden, said after the hearing he would be appealing the decision. She has yet to enter a plea to the charges. Apart from O’Connor’s lawyer, no one else has appeared in court on her behalf.
O’Connor has been jailed in the Bay Area since her October arrest in Idaho, where she’d recently moved, on 39 charges, including felony endangering or injuring children and misdemeanor furnishing liquor to minors, child molestation and sexual battery.
Madden told the court her incarceration has hindered his ability to defend her as she has been “in lockdown” because of COVID-19 outbreaks in the jail, where six of 65 incarcerated women have come down with the disease, and is let out for less than 30 minutes a day.
Prosecutors have argued that O’Connor remains a threat to the teen victims, their families and the broader community as well as a risk to flee justice.
Two of the girl victims and three of their mothers spoke at a Jan. 18 hearing, pleading with the judge not to release O’Connor. In tearful testimony, one girl said O’Connor had “robbed me of my innocence” and left her with “sickening memories.” One of the moms read testimony from another female victim.
Madden countered in a motion seeking bail that there’s no evidence of O’Connor poses a continued threat and that she’s entitled to bail because she isn’t charged with capital or violent offenses that would warrant keeping her locked up. He asked she be granted supervised release without bail under electronic monitoring.
“I don’t see any way she could successfully violate any of these conditions,” Madden said. “These are not violent felonies. She’s entitled to bail.”
The teen parties were alleged to have occurred during the 2020-21 school year, initially with O’Connor’s freshman son, his friends and their girlfriends in Los Gatos, and later in Idaho, where O’Connor had moved with her two boys in the spring. In December, she and her technology executive husband, with whom she has a younger son, sold their $4.6 million home in the Los Gatos hills.
According to prosecutors, O’Connor arranged for the teens to sneak out of their homes at night without telling their parents and forbade them to talk with anyone about the parties. “After the children were drunk on the alcohol she provided, she encouraged them to engage in sexual activity with each other,” prosecutors alleged in court filings, and “even facilitated the sexual encounters, some consensual and some nonconsensual.”
Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise argued in court that the charges against O’Connor do involve violence, in that the teens suffered physical injuries while drunk, and that some were sexually assaulted while unable to consent.
Wise also told the judge that since her arrest, O’Connor tried to persuade her son not to talk to authorities about her and worked with her husband to conceal some of their assets.
Judge Gogo cited those actions and the teens’ and parents’ testimony in arguing that “this is a very extraordinary case” that warrants keeping O’Connor in custody until trial, where he said there is “high likelihood” based on the evidence submitted to date that the charges will result in her conviction.
O’Connor was scheduled to reappear in court April 11 to enter a plea to the charges.
The judge’s decision was a relief to parents of the teens who told the judge that O’Connor would use social media to manipulate their children and menace them if they told other adults what she was doing.
“All of us feel so happy,” said the mother of one of the girls who testified afterward, “that he heard us.”