LOS GATOS, Cali. – A 47-year-old mother is being charged with 39 criminal counts, including felony child abuse, sexual assault, and providing alcohol to minors, according to California authorities.
The District Attorney for the County of Santa Clara filed the charges against Shannon O’Connor, who used to reside in Los Gatos, California but now lives in Eagle, Idaho.
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A news release from the DA’s office states that from mid-2020 to early 2021, O’Connor would host “drunken parties for young teenagers where she encouraged sex acts, sometimes non-consensual, and sometimes while she watched.”
She would also provide vodka, Fireball whiskey and condoms at the parties and she discouraged teens from telling their parents about what was going on, according to the DA’s office.
A 9-page Statement of Facts report details an instance where O’Connor left a teenager passed out in a bathroom, covered in his own vomit.
The report also states that O’Connor would rush the minors to leave when she realized her husband was almost home “to avoid her husband finding out.” She told the teenagers who attended her parties that she could go to jail for providing alcohol to minors.
“It took a lot of brave children to come forward and to untangle this deeply disturbing case,” DA Jeff Rosen said. “As a parent, I’m shocked. As the DA, I’m determined to hold those adults who endanger children fully accountable to the law and our community.”
According to the news release, O’Connor would throw the parties for mostly 14- and 15-year-olds, the same age as her son. During one of the parties she allegedly handed an underage teenager a condom and pushed him into a room with an intoxicated minor.
At a New Year’s Eve party, the news release states that O’Connor “watched and laughed as a drunk teen sexually battered a young girl in bed.” Another incident states that a drunk teen was brought into a bedroom by O’Connor and an intoxicated 14-year-old girl was lying in the bed.
The drunk teenager assaulted the 14-year-old and the girl asked O’Connor “why did you leave me in there with him? Like why did you like do that? Like you knew like what he was going to do me.”
The DA said O’Connor would text teens and use Snapchat to tell them to leave their homes in the middle of the night and drink at her house where she would provide alcohol.
O’Connor would designate rooms for the teens to engage in sexual activity.
“She would tell minor girls to go into certain rooms with minor boys waiting for them. If girls refused, [O’Connor] would take them aside for private conversation until they would go into the rooms,” according to the Statement of Facts report.
O’Connor is currently awaiting extradition from Idaho to California. She is facing felony fraud charges for making more than $120,000 in unauthorized charges on a company card in a separate, unrelated case.