A California woman deemed a “party mom” by prosecutors was found guilty of 48 criminal charges after she allegedly hosted “drunken” parties for teens at her home, where she encouraged them to engage in sex acts while intoxicated, according to officials.
The majority of the teens were 14 and 15 years old and some were “too drunk to consent” to sex, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said in a Wednesday, March 4, news release.
Children under the age of 18 are — under California law — unable to consent to sexual intercourse.
Shannon O’Connor, 51, was accused of buying and providing alcohol, including vodka and Fireball whiskey, for teens at the parties held at her Los Gatos home, according to prosecutors. She also allegedly handed out condoms to minors at the gatherings.
“She warned the victims not to disclose the parties, or she could go to jail,” prosecutors said.
The parties occurred between June 2020 and May 2021, during COVID’s height, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
At the end of O’Connor’s jury trial, where 20 “young adults and 41 witnesses testified,” she was found guilty on Wednesday, March 4, of felony child abuse charges, including two felony sex offenses, according to the district attorney’s office.
O’Connor “not only didn’t she protect these children, she endangered their safety, coordinated their sexual assaults, and she tried to get them not to tell,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “These brave kids came forward to tell the truth about what happened and to put a stop to it.”
O’Connor’s defense attorney, Stephen Prekoski, did not immediately return Us Weekly’s request for comment on Friday, March 6.
According to prosecutors, at one of O’Connor’s “drunken and destructive parties” involving about five 14-year-olds on New Year’s Eve, she allegedly stood by and watched one intoxicated teenager sexually assault a minor girl in a bed.
O’Connor was accused of laughing as the assault unfolded.
During another party, prosecutors said O’Connor led a drunk teen to a 14-year-old who was intoxicated and lying on a bed, resulting in the girl’s sexual assault.
Afterward, according to prosecutors, the girl went to O’Connor and asked, “Why did you leave me in there with him?”
“Like, you knew, like, what he was going to do to me,” the girl also said, according to prosecutors.
On another occasion, O’Connor gave a teen a condom and shoved him into a bedroom, where an intoxicated teen had been placed, the district attorney’s office said.
Court filings obtained by the Los Angeles Times say that O’Connor held the parties for her son and his friends.
The teens “would vomit, be unable to stand, and fall unconscious” at the gatherings, according to prosecutors, the newspaper reported.
O’Connor was also accused of reaching out to the teens via text or Snapchat at night to invite them to her home to drink alcohol, prosecutors said.
During another incident coordinated by O’Connor, she allegedly let a teen drive her car in the parking lot of Los Gatos High School, according to prosecutors.
One of two other teens, who had been holding onto the back of the car, fell and “was knocked unconscious,” prosecutors said.
After the jury’s verdicts, Prekoski said that she “was deeply disappointed in the decision,” KTLA reported.
She will face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison at her sentencing, which is set for March 26, according to the outlet.
