Trial underway for Los Gatos mom charged with running alcohol-fueled teen sex parties
Shannon O’Connor, 51, is being prosecuted for 20 felony child endangerment-related counts and 43 misdemeanor counts accusing her of furnishing alcohol to minors. The trial, which held opening statements Dec. 1, is expected to take months, with Judge Elizabeth Peterson stating in court documents that proceedings could carry over into March.
During testimony Wednesday, as a bespectacled O’Connor, clad in a black sweater, looked on alongside her attorney, a witness identified as Jane Doe 11 answered questions from Deputy District Attorney Morgan Willis. The questions were oriented toward establishing O’Connor as a mastermind of the illicit parties, and to bolster a prosecution argument that O’Connor’s sexual fascination with the children fueled the alleged crimes.
Jane Doe 11 is listed as a witness who is not one of the dozen-plus victims identified in the charging docket, and was friends with Jane Doe 7 — described as the girlfriend of John Doe 3, the pseudonym given to O’Connor’s son — and Jane Doe 12, an uncharged victim who prosecutors allege was pressured into drinking and sex by the defendant.
Doe 11 recalled being one of more than a dozen children, divided among boys and girls who were friends with John Doe 3, on group text chains and Snapchat messages with O’Connor, which she used, among other purposes, to pry into their budding sexual lives and to coordinate alcohol orders from them. She described O’Connor’s persistent questions about their sexual experiences, given that they were as young as 12 when the alleged misconduct began, as problematic in hindsight.
“It was weird an adult was asking sexual questions to 12-year-olds,” Doe 11 testified. “I thought it was odd someone was asking a 12-year-old these questions and it was uncomfortable.”
She also described efforts by O’Connor to conceal the parties from her husband, which included directives to hide behind landscaping and shrubbery across the street until he left, and then coming into the home. Doe 11 also recounted text message exchanges and phone calls between O’Connor and her son’s girlfriend Doe 7, some of which the girl clandestinely put on speakerphone, in which she claims O’Connor said his son would become suicidal if Doe 7 did not engage in sexual activity with him.
“She would feel pressured to have sex with him,” Doe 11 said of Doe 7.
The witness also said O’Connor “told us we should be honored to be around the boys.” When asked about how consensual the sex between teens was at the parties, she said of the girls, “They did not seem sober enough to (have sex).”
Willis later asked, “Did it seem like Ms. O’Connor was normalizing sex at that age?”
“Yes,” Doe 11 replied.
The criminal accusations revolve around a reputed obsession by O’Connor to bolster her son’s social status at school, which included acting as a “cool mom” who allowed him and his friends to drink alcohol at her Los Gatos home as early as their middle-school years. That escalated once the son began attending Los Gatos High School, both in the scale of the parties and her alleged active hand in coaxing the boys into engaging in sexual activity with underage girls, who authorities say she pressured and plied with alcohol.
The parties, and the consequences, did not escape notice, with other parents developing suspicions after teens who attended the parties got home inexplicably injured or heavily intoxicated, according to witness testimony given both to a criminal grand jury two years ago and in the budding criminal trial. That surge in suspicion aligned with O’Connor moving with her children to Idaho, which is where she was arrested in 2021.
One teen recounted nearly drowning in a bathtub after a night of heavy drinking; several recalled having little to no memory of being sexually penetrated, and in one anecdote, a teen boy suffered a serious head injury after falling off an SUV during a drunken joyride — with O’Connor said to have been behind the wheel.
Another throughline, authorities say, was O’Connor’s apparent effort to ensure that teens who went to the parties — many of which were at her home but also extended to out-of-area lodges and cabins — did not spread the word to outsiders. That diligence, according to prosecutors’ pretrial legal filings, continued as recently as this past summer in recorded jail phone calls between O’Connor and her son.
The filings include excerpts from a recorded July 2025 jail call in which O’Connor reportedly tries to dissuade her son from cooperating with prosecutors.
According to the filing, O’Connor responded with, “No, you cannot do that … you need immunity first,” to which John Doe 3 replied, “Mom, they’re not out to get me.”
That was followed by O’Connor telling him, “you could ruin my whole case. You know that, right?” When her son expressed doubt about whether to talk to the DA’s office, she reportedly said, “no, no don’t do anything … Don’t go through the DA, that’s crazy! Don’t go!”
The road to the ongoing trial has seen numerous starts and stops, owing to O’Connor changing attorneys, her alleged misconduct while at the Elmwood women’s jail in Milpitas — including accusations of drug smuggling — and her periodic refusal to come to court because of what she has claimed are jail-acquired afflictions, including a recent outbreak of hives. The delays stacked up enough that in October 2023, about two years after her initial arrest and charging, the district attorney’s office secured a grand jury indictment that bypassed the conventional track for criminal prosecution and put the case on a more direct path toward trial.
Prior to the indictment, O’Connor balked at the prospect of pleading guilty after learning she would receive a 17-year prison term; the indictment now means she could face over 30 years in prison if convicted on all counts and given a maximum sentence. She has also sought to avoid any sentence that would require her to register as a sex offender, a condition that accompanies a conviction on the indicted felony counts.
On Wednesday, Doe 11 also testified that O’Connor sent messages to Doe 12 describing “dreams of three girls having sexual relations with boys on Mount Umunhum.” That testimony undergirded the prosecution position of O’Connor being driven by an unnatural sexual fascination with children.
But Doe 11 also described troubling changes in Doe 12 resulting from her contact with O’Connor, including wearing more revealing clothing and engaging in sex acts as a nascent teen. That caused the two, who had been best friends, to drift apart.
“She started acting older than her age,” Doe 11 said. “Looking back now, I don’t think it’s normal at all, and no adult should be asking those questions.”