"Jurors waded through 20 felony counts covering child endangerment - including two that accused of her sexual battery by proxy in allowing reported victims to get staggeringly drunk - and 43 misdemeanor counts largely alleging that she furnished alcohol to minors over the course of more than a week of deliberations."
"O'Connor did not testify in her defense, but she offered a defense of sorts when in December, during a holiday break in the trial, she contacted this news organization from the Elmwood women's jail in Milpitas to mount a rare public defense against the criminal charges. She objected to her portrayal to that point and said she was being used as a scapegoat for teenagers' illicit behavior."
"In the Dec. 23 jail call with The Mercury News, she accepted some responsibility for the parties, but only through the lens of a concerned mother who knew about but failed to keep up with the teens' scheming and, in hindsight, wrongly trying to keep the parties from garnering wider notice."
Shannon O'Connor, 51, faced trial on 20 felony counts and 43 misdemeanor counts related to organizing parties for her teen son and his friends. Authorities alleged these gatherings provided an environment for dangerous binge drinking and sexual assaults of intoxicated girls. O'Connor spent four-and-a-half years in Santa Clara County jail during the three-month trial, which involved testimony from dozens of witnesses. She did not testify in her defense but claimed through a jail call that she was being used as a scapegoat for teenagers' illicit behavior. O'Connor acknowledged some responsibility for the parties but characterized herself as a concerned mother who failed to prevent the teens' scheming.
Read at The Mercury News
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