LOS GATOS — A South Bay woman has been charged with hosting a series of illegal parties for her son and his friends, accused of supplying alcohol and pushing them to binge drink with teen girls and manipulating them into having sex, and in some instances, facilitating sexual assaults.
Shannon Bruga, who is also known as Shannon O’Connor, is awaiting extradition to Santa Clara County after she was arrested Saturday in Ada County, Idaho, where she has a home in addition to her residence in Los Gatos that is currently on the market.
She faces 39 criminal charges, encompassing 12 felony counts and 10 misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, one count of misdemeanor sexual battery, three counts of misdemeanor child molestation, and 13 misdemeanor counts of providing alcohol to minors.
According to an investigative outline submitted by prosecutors, the 47-year-old Bruga is characterized as being obsessed with using text messages and Snapchat to coordinate and organize secret booze-filled parties attended by as many as 20 teens, where she was the lone adult and where she often pushed them into drinking to a point of illness or unconsciousness.
“It took a lot of brave children to come forward and to untangle this deeply disturbing case,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in statement. “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.”
There was no immediate indication that any of the teen boys described as engaging in sex acts with inebriated girls at Bruga’s parties will be prosecuted. Any charges filed against a minor is typically not public record.
“It’s just so terrible what she did to my daughter and these other children,” said the mother of one of the girls, who isn’t being identified because her daughter was a crime victim. “My heart breaks for these kids. It’s been devastating. It’s a worst nightmare for a parent.”
The parties reportedly spanned from June 2020 — amid the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic — to May 2021, and included at least a half-dozen large events and several smaller gatherings involving mostly 14- and 15-year-olds.
A prevailing element of the parties, as the teens reportedly told investigators, was that Bruga encouraged the teens to have sex or engage in sex acts, with the minors in various states of inebriation suggesting that often the sexual interactions were not consensual.
Bruga’s older son at the time was a freshman Los Gatos High School football player, and the mother of one of the girls said the boys involved were teammates. She said she raised concerns about the drinking with coaches and school officials at the beginning of the year, but that she was told that since it was off campus and there was nothing they could do.
“I really don’t think the high school has taken responsibility for their piece of this,” the mother said.
Officials with Los Gatos High School and the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday.
Bruga was reportedly adamant that the teens who attended these parties keep them secret, and is accused of helping teens sneak out of their homes at night and driving them to her house. According to investigators, she is accused of bullying at least one teen she suspected of breaking the secret.
She also allegedly went to great lengths to conceal the parties from her husband, longtime tech manager and executive Robert Amaral, who is currently the chief revenue officer of SlashNext, a Pleasanton-based firm specializing in anti-phishing and anti-fraud software.
The physical toll on attendees of the parties was extensive, as alleged in the court documents. Several teens reported drinking to the point of heavy vomiting, and the intoxication was to a level where one teen broke a finger.
Investigators say in one instance, Bruga witnessed a boy punching and kicking a girl who was intoxicated and didn’t intervene. Bruga is also accused of leading a boy into the bedroom where the same girl at another of the house parties was lying on a bed “and going in and out of consciousness.” After Bruga left the room, the boy allegedly digitally penetrated the girl.
The girl told investigators that led to her confronting Bruga and telling her, “Why did you leave me in there with him? Like why did you like do that? Like you knew like what he was going to do me.”
To which Bruga allegedly “just laughed at” the question, according to the court document.
There is also an account alleging that on Dec. 19, Bruga drove her son and two of his friends in her SUV while they drank alcohol, and allowed at least one of them to drive, unlicensed in the parking lot of Los Gatos High. At one point her son and his friend hung off the back of the vehicle while it was moving, and the friend fell and hit his head, falling unconscious for up to 30 seconds.
That moment was when the alleged scheme was almost exposed, after someone saw the aftermath of the fall and called 911, prompting a police officer to catch up to the vehicle at a nearby minimart. But Bruga was reportedly able to convince the officer that the vomit-filled SUV was a product of the boys’ car sickness.
Later that night, the injured boy “spent the night vomiting, and almost drowned in the tub due to his intoxication,” according to investigators, who added that an ensuing doctor’s appointment confirmed he had a concussion.
It was one major sign that parents were getting word of what was happening.
A girl told investigators that at a party a couple of weeks after the concussion incident, she almost drowned in a hot tub because of her intoxication. The girl reported that on that same night, one of Bruga’s son’s friends digitally penetrated her in the hot tub and fondled her later in a bedroom, and that Bruga laughed while witnessing the acts.
The boy involved in those acts reportedly told investigators “he was so intoxicated from the alcohol provided by (Bruga) that he has no memory of this occurring.”
Besides parties at her home, investigators state that they determined at least two out-of-town parties that Bruga threw. At an October 2020 party at a Santa Cruz cottage for her son’s 15th birthday, there were a dozen teen boys and girl on hand, and they caused $9,000 in damages to the property.
Investigators say they also found evidence that Bruga threw a party in Lake Tahoe on Feb. 15 in which she “concocted a story” for teens to tell their parents about the context of the trip, including assurances that no alcohol would be involved and that girls would be staying in different rooms from the boys.
Bruga’s criminal history includes active felony grand theft charges after she was accused of illicitly charging $120,000 to an employer’s company credit card. Under the name Shannon O’Connor, she pleaded no contest in 2009 to three counts of filing false insurance claims.
“Everyone should feel relieved this woman’s not on the street,” the mother of one of the girls said. “She was grooming these kids, setting them up for sexual acts, and she’s a mother and doing this to her own child … I’ve been racking my brain trying to think what was in it for her.”