A Los Gatos woman faces nearly 40 criminal charges, including 12 felonies, for allegedly encouraging young teenagers to drink and engage in sex acts, sometimes nonconsensually, at parties she hosted.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced on Tuesday that Shannon O'Connor, 47, is being extradited from her current home in Eagle, Idaho and will be arraigned "at a later date." O’Connor allegedly threw multiple parties for her teenage son and his friends, none of whom were older than 15, discouraging the children from telling their parents.
In a warrant for her arrest, prosecutors charged O'Connor with 12 felony counts of child endangerment, 10 misdemeanor counts of child endangerment with unjustifiable pain, 13 misdemeanor counts of providing alcohol to minors, three misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child and one count of misdemeanor sexual battery.
The 12 felony counts carry sentences of up to six years, while conviction on any of the three misdemeanor charges of annoying or molesting would require O'Connor to register as a sex offender in California.
"It took a lot of brave children to come forward and to untangle this deeply disturbing case," District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen said in a release announcing the charges. "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."
O’Connor first began throwing alcohol-fueled bashes for her son and his friends last summer, according to a statement of facts drafted by an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office. From then until this February, the investigator alleged O'Connor "supplied excessive amounts of alcohol to her son and his minor friends" leading "to the point where they would vomit, be unable to stand" and, in some cases, "fall unconscious."
Last August, O'Connor allegedly messaged one 14-year-old girl, whom she feared told others about the parties, repeatedly and threatened to spread rumors about the girl – which the investigator claimed O’Connor had done about other children in the post. The girl experienced panic attacks as a result, the investigator wrote.
In December, O'Connor gave a condom to a boy, pushing him into a bedroom where a 14-year-old girl was lying down, drunk, according to the document. At another party, O'Connor and her son encouraged the same girl to let a 14-year-old boy to "hook up" with her. When the girl went to lie down in another part of the house because she was "feeling extremely intoxicated and going in and out of consciousness," O'Connor then brought the boy into the room, according to the document.
The 14-year-old boy then sexually battered the 14-year-old girl "while she cried and covered her face with a pillow," feeling "too intoxicated to react or resist" when O'Connor brought the boy to the room.
O’Connor allegedly laughed at the girl asking, "Why did you leave me in there with him?" The boy was allegedly too intoxicated to remember the sexual battery, as he was during a New Year's Eve party in which he touched another 14-year-old girl without her consent. O’Connor, according to the document, “laughed” while the girl “repeatedly” told the boy to get off her.
A 14-year-old boy also allegedly sustained a concussion under O'Connor's watch, losing consciousness for 20-30 seconds when he fell off the back of her SUV while "an unlicensed, underage" teenage boy drove. O'Connor allegedly didn’t tell the concussed teen’s parents what happened, dropping him off near his home that night and “leaving him to navigate his way from the street to his home.”
Bruga is currently being held in Ada County Jail in Boise, Idaho, according to Ada County Sheriff's Office records. She was arrested Saturday afternoon.
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