The California “Party Mom” accused of hosting boozy sex parties for her son and his friends allegedly pressured them to keep quiet after their raucous raves, telling them “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
Shannon O’Connor, 50, had to face her own words in court Tuesday when the prosecutors displayed texts she allegedly swapped with her own son and his freshmen friends over Snapchat.
O’Connor was slapped with dozens of charges for allegedly organizing illicit sex parties for the gaggle of teens at her Los Gatos home and in vacation rentals — where rampant sexual assaults occurred under her watch.
During one trip to Las Vegas in summer 2020, O’Connor’s 14-year-old son sent out a text in a group chat demanding “a f—king beer,” according to the texts obtained by KRON 4.
O’Connor didn’t bat an eye.
“I’m down. Champagne? [Let’s] hit the pool with drinks, lots of drinks,” she texted back.
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” she added in a separate text sometime during the trip.
Many of the texts she shared with the victims were sent over Snapchat, where most content is deleted within 24 hours unless the users physically save it in their chats.
It’s unclear if O’Connor’s husband was also on the Vegas trip. A John Doe who testified in early January alleged that O’Connor would instruct them to wait until her husband was gone before digging into their alcohol stash.
“Wait until he leaves, don’t spill anything, don’t do anything stupid,” John Doe 5 recalled on the stand.
A video shared in the courtroom Tuesday showed a panoramic view of a pool party held at O’Connor’s $4 million home in May 2020, where multiple boys were seen dancing around a pool, jacuzzi and diving board while country music blared in the background.
An investigator explained that O’Connor recorded the video while she had a clear view of the backyard from her kitchen. Many victims cited the jacuzzi as a prime spot where the sexual assaults took place, the outlet reported.
Twelve female “Jane Doe” victims and eight “John Does” have been identified. All attended O’Connor’s parties, where she allegedly mandated who “hooked up” and played voyeur while the misguided minors sexually assaulted one another.
John Doe 5 testified that O’Connor behaved more like one of the “popular girls” in the group and carefully managed who was permitted entry into the fold.
He said that the teens would frequently chat about sex with O’Connor, which he admitted was “pretty weird” in hindsight.
One witness, who testified that she couldn’t “escape” O’Connor after dumping her son, said that the party mom was “horrifically calm” while cleaning up the teens messes.
O’Connor faces 63 counts in connection with the purported sex parties throughout the 2020 and 2021 school year.