Perhaps knowing that things aren't looking great for her at trial, and apparently against the advice of her attorney, accused Los Gatos "party mom" Shannon O'Connor reached out to several news outlets to offer some of her own side of her story.

Could it be a hail mary to seek public support, or a calculated attempt to taint the jury and get a mistrial? Who can say? But Shannon O'Connor apparently made multiple recent phone calls from jail to multiple news outlets in an attempt to get her side of the story out there. The calls apparently happened before Christmas, just after the court recessed following the opening days of O'Connor's trial on 63 counts that include child endangerment and furnishing alcohol to minors.

The Mercury News published parts of their interview on December 31, based on two 15-minute phone calls on December 23. In that interview, O'Connor tried to deflect blame for the alcohol-fueled parties she hosted at her Los Gatos home and elsewhere in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021, suggesting that other parents were letting the teens drink during the pandemic as well and she wasn't aware of the full extent of their consumption.

"Teenagers are sneaky. They find their way to things," O'Connor said.

NBC Bay Area aired their interview with O'Connor from around the same time on Wednesday. The station says, "NBC Bay Area planned to hold off airing the interview until the trial was over. However, O’Connor proceeded to call multiple news outlets from jail, and one published an interview."

The station adds, "O’Connor said she wanted her side told even against her attorney’s advice."

The interview with a local news network, in the middle of a trial, is strange on its face, and we can't know exactly what O'Connor believes she will get out of doing this at this late stage.

One parent told the Mercury News, "She's a master manipulator, and she’s looking to make this sound less intense or less troubling than it absolutely was," but knowing that the jury is instructed not to look up the case or read any news about it, what else could she be trying to do besides taint the jury and hope for a mistrial?

One juror was, indeed, dismissed on Monday and replace with an alternate after the trial resumed, after they admitted to having read about the case during the break — could they have caught O'Connor's jailhouse interview published on New Year's Eve?

In the NBC interview, O'Connor says, "“I’m sorry if I contributed to any stress, to any emotional distress. I really did embrace these kids. These were, you know, like a family, some of these teenagers. And I cared for them."

She adds, "It's so unfair. A lot of these stories are just not true... These teenagers were... in a COVID lockdown, they were desperate for socialization. They were trying to find any outlet possible…They were experimenting with alcohol. Many parents knew this. I knew this as well. There was almost no stopping it. These teenagers drank drank at multiple people's homes, not just mine."

And she says that, in retrospect, "I shouldn't have looked the other way too many times. I should have called maybe a parent meeting, and we could have tackled this as a community."

She also seems to be throwing up her hands, suggesting her rights were violated when evidence from both her and her eldest son's phones was collected outside what she says were the approved dates of a search warrant.

"I thought I would get a fair chance," O'Connor tells NBC. "That was my hope to begin with, was to be able to tell my story and tell the truth about everything that happened. And unfortunately, this whole process has been flawed. And I don't feel as though I will get a fair jury at this point."

The first few days of witness testimony this week included testimony from one of the teen boys, known in court as John Doe 5, who was friends her with son, both of whom were around age 14 when the house parties began in the summer of 2020.

The teen said that O'Connor kept a laundry basket full of beers in the garage, under a tarp, hidden from her husband, and O'Connor's son told the friend where to find them. When the husband left the house, John Doe 5 said, a case of beer was brought out openly to the room where the teens were hanging out.

The owner of a rental house in Santa Cruz also testified about surveillance footage showing an unruly group of teen boys consuming large amounts of alcohol and trashing the home — during a trip in which O'Connor allegedly rented the home for her son's 15th birthday party and invited a number of teen boys and girls.

Prosecutors say they will be calling witnesses who will testify to O'Connor's unhealthy involvement in the teenagers' sex lives, encouraging unsafe behavior and allegedly laughing off encounters in which girls say they were assaulted while extremely intoxicated.

O'Connor, who three years ago rejected a plea deal that would have seen her sentenced to 17 years in prison, faces possibly 30 years or more if she is convicted.

Previously: Testimony at Trial of Los Gatos 'Party Mom' Shannon O'Connor Just as Lurid and Gross as You'd Imagine