A trial date was further delayed Wednesday for the accused Los Gatos “party mom” who has been in jail for more than 27 months but can no longer afford her lawyer.
The latest setback for Shannon O’Connor emerged during a hearing to set a trial date for felony charges of child endangerment and abetting sexual assault for hosting drunken bacchanals for her teen son and his classmates.
Wearing a dark green jail jumpsuit over white long johns and orange rubber jail shoes, O’Connor sat silent as her lawyer Brian Madden told Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Peterson she needed to request representation by the public defender.
“Ms. O’Connor can no longer afford to pay her attorney’s fees,” Madden said.
Judge Peterson said she’d make the request and scheduled a March 6 hearing to confirm her lawyer.
O’Connor has been jailed since her October 2021 arrest in the scandal that rocked the tony Silicon Valley suburb with accusations that the Los Gatos mom secretly lured teens to her spacious mountaintop mansion for late-night benders where her freshman son and his classmates drank to the point of vomiting and passing out.
Prosecutors alleged in court filings that some drunken teens injured themselves by falling, others nearly drowned in tubs and that she encouraged them to engage in sexual hookups with underaged teen girls that weren’t always consensual.
After repeated delays in trying to schedule a preliminary hearing on the original criminal complaint, prosecutors last fall got a grand jury to indict her on more serious charges for which she could face more than 20 years in prison.
Some of those delays came after O’Connor asked Judge Peterson to tell her what her sentence would be if she pleaded guilty as charged to the original complaint. After being told it would be more than 17 years, she declined.
In the more than two years since her jailing without bail after teens testified they felt threatened by her, O’Connor’s high-flying Los Gatos lifestyle has imploded. Her second husband with whom she has a younger son filed for divorce and they sold their Los Gatos home. Filings in their divorce case indicate she already is representing herself in family court.
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