Shannon O’Connor, 47, listens throughout her court docket look on the County of Santa Clara Corridor of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. O’Connor, who has been locked up since her October arrest, has but to enter a plea to a number of prices of felony youngster endangerment and molestation, in addition to misdemeanor counts of furnishing liquor to youngsters. (Pool picture NBC Bay Space)
A Los Gatos teen stood trembling on the courtroom microphone, barely sustaining her composure as she tearfully begged a choose to not permit bail for the lady accused of internet hosting drunken highschool events and sexual hookups for her freshman son’s associates.
That girl, charged by her maiden identify as Shannon O’Connor to keep away from additional traumatizing a son now dwelling along with his father in Texas, “robbed me of my innocence” and left her with searing “reminiscences I’ll must reside with the remainder of my life,” the lady, recognized in court docket solely as Jane Doe 4, mentioned Tuesday.
Her feedback got here in a outstanding bail listening to that featured the primary testimony from a number of the greater than a dozen teenagers O’Connor is accused of victimizing. No resolution was made on whether or not O’Connor can stroll free whereas awaiting trial, however the kids and their mother and father made palpable the risk they really feel from the enigmatic girl on the middle of a nationally infamous scandal.
“I concern she won't face the regulation,” the lady continued tearfully as O’Connor, 47, sat subsequent to her lawyer together with her again to the teenager at a desk just some ft away. “She damage so many younger folks, together with her younger sons.”
O’Connor has been jailed within the Bay Space since her October arrest in Idaho, the place she’d lately moved, on 39 prices together with felony endangering or injuring kids and misdemeanor furnishing liquor to minors, youngster molestation and sexual battery. In line with prosecutors, she organized for the teenagers to sneak out of their properties at night time with out telling their mother and father and forbade them to speak with anybody in regards to the events. She was making her second request for an opportunity to submit bail.
The case made nationwide headlines and roiled the trendy city nestled on the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking Silicon Valley, recognized for its Victorian structure, mountain biking and Michelin-star eating and the place O’Connor’s oldest son had been a well-liked soccer quarterback.
Prosecutors have argued that O’Connor stays a risk to the teenager victims, their households and the broader neighborhood in addition to a danger to flee justice. Her lawyer, Brian Madden, countered in a movement final week that there’s no proof of that and mentioned his consumer isn’t charged with capital or violent offenses that will warrant conserving her locked up.
Choose Johnny Gogo set a Feb. 3 date to determine on O’Connor’s bail request after her lawyer requested permission to file a rebuttal to prosecutors’ argument towards permitting her launch.
The teenager events had been alleged to have been held through the 2020-2021 college 12 months, initially together with her freshman son, his associates and their girlfriends in Los Gatos and later in Idaho, the place she had moved with the boys within the spring. She and her expertise govt husband, with whom she has a youthful son, bought their $4.6 million residence within the Los Gatos hills final month.
In line with prosecutors’ court docket filings, “after the youngsters had been drunk on the alcohol she offered, she inspired them to have interaction in sexual exercise with one another” and “even facilitated the sexual encounters, some consensual and a few nonconsensual.” They mentioned there are 15 teen victims.
O’Connor, in response to prosecution filings, as soon as gave a teen boy a condom and despatched him right into a room in her home the place Jane Doe 4 was mendacity drunk on a mattress. The lady, fearing what would occur, locked herself in a rest room. In different encounters, O’Connor allegedly advised the lady to provide one other boy oral intercourse and advised a boy to the touch the lady sexually whereas they had been drunk in O’Connor’s scorching tub.
Later that night time, when the lady was nearly handed out from alcohol in a bed room, O’Connor allegedly let a boy sexually molest her and laughed on the lady afterward when she complained. Months later, after the lady had a falling out with O’Connor, the lady noticed her strolling alongside the road, pulled alongside in her automobile and stared at her to intimidate her.
“She has no regard for the regulation and is a grasp manipulator,” the lady’s mom advised the choose Tuesday. “Please preserve her behind bars so our youngsters can heal.”
A woman recognized as Jane Doe 8 from Idaho had met O’Connor’s son after she and her boys moved there final spring. Prosecution court docket filings say O’Connor invited the lady and her sister to their Los Gatos residence final April, the place she plied the women with alcohol, inspired Jane Doe 8 and her older son to have intercourse and advised her tips on how to preserve it a secret from her mother and father.
Jane Doe 8 and her mom advised the choose Tuesday that they feared O’Connor will return to Idaho if launched and are available after them. They begged him if he does permit her launch, to not let her have entry to a cellular phone, as a result of they feared she’d attempt to contact them.
“We wish to really feel freed from concern,” Jane Doe 8 advised the choose. Her mom added, “she's going to additional torment our youngsters.”
The mom of Jane Doe 2, a lady prosecutors allege O’Connor invited to a consuming celebration together with her son and his associates at Lake Tahoe the place she was subjected to an undesirable sexual encounter, advised the choose O’Connor “has the means to vanish.”
Jane Doe 4’s mom additionally learn a press release from Jane Doe 3, whom O’Connor allegedly allowed to drink to the purpose of vomiting and nearly drowning in her scorching tub and who was subjected to an undesirable sexual encounter. Prosecutors mentioned O’Connor laughed when the crying lady complained to her that “he made me bleed.”
“She taught us tips on how to misinform our mother and father,” the lady wrote within the letter, and once they threatened to inform their mother and father what had occurred, “she threatened us.”
“I'm scared” of O’Connor, she wrote.