FILE – Shannon O’Connor, the Los Gatos woman charged with throwing drunken and sex-filled parties for her son and local teens, attends an arraignment hearing in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021.
MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/MediaNews Group via Getty ImagesA 48-year-old California mom accused of throwing alcohol-fueled sex parties for her teenage son and his friends asked a judge in a preliminary hearing Monday whether the length of her prison time would change if she switched her plea from not guilty to guilty as charged, the Mercury News reported.
Shannon O’Connor, dubbed “party mom” by the media, has been sitting behind bars since she was arrested in October 2021 on suspicion of throwing parties for her teenage son and his friends.
O’Connor is facing 39 criminal counts of felony child abuse, sexual assault, providing alcohol to minors and other crimes. Prosecutors alleged in charging documents that the mother threw large, wild parties in the Silicon Valley town, where she served alcohol to high school students and encouraged the teenagers to have sex, some of which may have been nonconsensual.
She “bought vodka and Fireball whiskey, provided condoms, and discouraged the teens from telling their parents about the parties or calling for help when one of them passed out in their own vomit,” the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. The parties were held across an 11-month period spanning from 2020 to 2021 and were mainly attended by 14- and 15-year-olds, the prosecution said.
While locked up at Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas without bail, O’Connor was attacked in October 2022 by five female inmates who beat her with their hands and kicked her, according to court documents obtained by KRON.
O’Connor originally pleaded not guilty, but on Monday, the defense inquired about a plea change.
FILE: Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen talks about the Shannon O’Connor case outside of the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. O’Connor is the Los Gatos woman charged with throwing drunken and sex-filled parties for her son and local teens.
MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/MediaNews Group via Getty Images“In every criminal case the defendant has the right to ask the judge for an offer in exchange for an as-charged guilty plea,” Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise, a prosecutor in the case, told SFGATE. “Our goal at this time is to provide the judge with all the relevant information about the case so that she indicates a just and appropriate sentence.”
O’Connor is due in a court again Friday; Wise said victims and witnesses will be making statements from the podium in the audience, providing additional information for the judge to consider before proposing a plea deal.
Legal expert Steven Clark told the Mercury News that it’s not uncommon for a defendant to request a plea change, and the defense is likely “hoping a judge will appreciate O’Connor accepting responsibility and be more merciful, and given she’s already spent a year and a half in the county jail, it could get her closer to a release date rather than having to wait to try her case.”
O’Connor’s lawyer, Brian Madden, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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