Jenny O’Connell-Nowain smiles on her way out of Shasta County Superior Court on Friday, July 11, 2025, after pleading not guilty to charges of disrupting a Nov. 7 supervisors meeting and resisting arrest. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain, the Redding woman who caused a commotion with a sit-down protest during a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting on Nov. 7, stood her ground Friday in Shasta County Superior Court.
O’Connell-Nowain, 41, is charged with two misdemeanors – disturbing a public meeting and resisting, delaying or obstructing a peace officer.
In a surprise move, O’Connell-Nowain said the District Attorney’s Office offered her a plea bargain during a hallway conversation, which she rejected.
“Yeah, they offered it (a plea bargain) immediately,” O’Connell-Nowain said in an interview after her appearance before Judge Anthony Anderson.
“He (the District Attorney representative) said, ‘You offer no plea at all.’ All I have to do is sign a piece of paper to make it go away,” she said.
“They wanted to shove it under the rug. And I was like, ‘I’m not shoving this under the rug.’ You wrongly arrested me and held me in jail for exerting my First Amendment right. And I think that should be known,” she said.
O’Connell-Nowain described her sit-in last fall as peaceful and is pushing for a jury trial.
“How did I disrupt a meeting? It’s not disrupted by me. They proved it with Dawn Ashmun that the meeting could have continued. So I’m. I can’t follow an arbitrary rule.
“You know, what exactly is the definition of disruption? So we both decided. I will plead not guilty. We will take this to a trial of my peers, and the trial of my peers will decide whether or not this was a disruption.”
O’Connell-Nowain’s charges stem from a nighttime board meeting when she stepped to the front of the supervisors’ chambers and in front of then-Supervisor Patrick Jones, held a sign that read, “Patrick Jones resign.”
In past interviews, O’Connell-Nowain has said she was upset with Jones’ persistent criticism of county employees. She was also supporting since-fired Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut.
Earlier in that November meeting during public comments, O’Connell-Nowain held a different sign that read, “Joanna is the true patriot.”
When O’Connell-Nowain approached the dais, Board of Supervisors Chairman Kevin Crye told her to sit down, which she did.
Her husband, Benjamin Nowain, joined her on the floor, but left a short time later to be with their son.
O’Connell-Nowain said the proposed plea bargain would have required her to perform community service at a place of her choosing and promise never to disrupt a meeting again.
Instead, she entered not guilty pleas and said a settlement conference was set for 8:30 a.m. Aug. 11.
In an email, spokeswoman Briona Sisneros of the District Attorney’s Office confirmed the woman’s not guilty pleas but couldn’t go into details of the plea offer.
“The Shasta County DA’s Office does not typically provide any information on the details of an offer in a case which is pending litigation and will not be in this case,” Sisneros said.
On a side note, a Shasta County marshal on Friday told the two media members (A News Cafe and Shasta Scout) covering the arraignment to stand in the back of the courtroom, which made it difficult to hear the proceedings.
Also, a lack of judges forced defendants originally scheduled for two separate courtrooms into one packed courtroom. As a result, a marshal said only defendants could sit in the courtroom while their companions, including O’Connell’s husband, Benjamin, had to wait outside.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain, right, and her husband, Benjamin Nowain, enjoy the view from a courthouse window before she appeared for her arraignment in Shasta County Superior Court on Friday morning, July 11, 2025. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
Redding attorney Michael Borges made an appearance for O’Connell-Nowain. She said he’s helping her pro-bono – meaning for the public good and without expecting a fee.
“He wanted me to have representation,” she said.
Borges didn’t reply to A News Cafe’s voicemail and email requests Friday afternoon for comment on the case.
Following her hearing, O’Connell-Nowain questioned why she was arrested in the first place.
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain talks with several supporters outside a Shasta County courtroom following her arraignment on Friday, July 11, 2025. She wore an Expendables shirt from “Star Trek” to symbolize how she feels the county is making an example out of her. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
“The lawyer (Borges) asked the same thing I did, ‘How did I disrupt a meeting?’”
“What exactly is the definition of disruption? So we both decided I will plead not guilty. We will take this to a jury of my peers and the trial of my peers will decide whether or not this was a disruption,” O’Connell-Nowain said afterward.
At that fall meeting, County Counsel Joseph Larmour asked Crye to give the Nowains an official warning before the board took a break.
“You bet,” Crye said, according to a transcript. “Before we recess, will the two individuals please, seated in front, move. This is your warning before you will be removed. All right, with that, they are not moving. We are going to be at five-minute recess.”
After that, two security guards were joined by Shasta County sheriff’s deputies, who handcuffed O’Connell-Nowain in the darkened chamber and carried her away for booking at the jail.
That Nov. 7 meeting was also the one where the public was cleared from the room and deputies ordered the news media out despite protests.
Double-standard for protesters
O’Connell-Nowain on Friday brought up the hypocrisy of her being charged when another woman, Dawn Ashmun, did her own spontaneous sit-down protest two months later in January.
Dawn Ashmun sits in front of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 7, 2025, to protest Kevin Crye’s reappointment as board chairman. Ashmun was allowed to sit and wasn’t arrested, unlike Jenny O’Connell-Nowain who was arrested for her sit-in protest two months earlier.
Ashmun walked from the audience to the floor in front of the five supervisors and sat cross-legged because she disagreed with the majority vote to reappoint Crye as board chairman.
“I was really looking forward to a change in the tone of the board,” she explained at the courthouse Friday.
At the time, County Counsel Larmour said Ashmun wasn’t upsetting the meeting and she was allowed to sit in front of the dais.
O’Connell-Nowain cited the board’s treatment of Ashmun’s as an example of why she didn’t disrupt the fall meeting.
“(The board) proved it with Dawn Ashmun that the meeting could have continued. So I can’t follow an arbitrary rule,” O’Connell-Nowain said.
Not long after in January, Chairman Crye asked Ashmun to move so the board could take a group photo. Crye helped her up and that was it.
Ashmun revealed Friday that Crye told her she could return if she wanted to.
“You know, they told me after Kevin helped me up that I could go back and sit down after the photograph was done,” Ashmun said.
She said she declined to go back because she realized it was going to be physically difficult for her to get back up off the carpet.
“You know, I was thinking I’m going to have to wait until the meeting’s done and the lights are off so I can crawl out,” she said.
Symbolic shirt
Jenny O’Connell-Nowain sits in Shasta County Superior Court on Friday, July 11, 2025, awaiting her arraignment on charges of disrupting a Board of Supervisors meeting last fall. All photos by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
O’Connell-Nowain, who fancies pink and strawberry-themed outfits and wore a Pikachu costume to the recent No Kings protest in Redding, came to court in a red “Star Trek” top.
The shirt, she said, represents the Expendable crew members from the series’ early episodes. The red-shirted Expendables are the ones who go on dangerous missions and are typically the ones who get killed first or beamed away somewhere.
“You always know who’s going to die first in the away missions because they wear this red shirt, and so they’re the Expendables. They’re just there for that purpose,” she said.
O’Connell-Nowain compares her situation to those sacrificial sci-fi crew members, as the sit-in protester who’s being made an example of as a sacrificial lamb by taking the county’s bullet.
Editor’s note: One passage in this story was revised at 9:50 a.m. on July 12, 2025, for clarity.
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