Judge denies bail for Los Gatos party mom
Prosecutors said that since her arrest, Shannon O'Connor tried to dissuade a son from talking to authorities and to hide her assets.
A judge Thursday denied bail for a woman accused of hosting binge-drinking parties for her high school freshman son and his friends in Los Gatos where girls were sexually assaulted after hearing from another teen victim and parents pleading that she not be allowed to go free before trial.
During the dramatic hearing, another teen girl told Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Johnny Gogo that she would “feel incredibly unsettled” if he allowed Shannon O’Connor to post bail. Her former husband, who now lives in Texas with her older son, said she and her current husband tried to hide the boy from him.
“I know her,” the former husband, identified as the father of John Doe 3 in court to protect the child’s identity as he is considered one of the 15 victims. “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.
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.
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 girl 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.
The teen parties were alleged to have been held during the 2020-2021 school year, initially with her 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 incidents 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 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.”