A former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate and outspoken voice in the conservative “parental rights” school movement has been charged with punching a teenager while hosting an underage drinking party at her Bucks County home in September.
Clarice Schillinger, 36, is facing criminal charges of assault, harassment and furnishing minors with alcohol during her daughter’s birthday party, according to the case filed in late October. Her attorney has denied all charges and said she will fight them in court.
Schillinger made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor as a Republican last year and has played an instrumental role in a political action committee that has poured more than $800,000 into Pennsylvania school district races since 2021. The PAC has focused on supporting school board candidates who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns and argue left-wing ideologies are invading the education system.
Clarice Schillinger, a former Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor and a founder of a PAC favoring conservative school board candidates, faces multiple charges in Bucks County for allegedly providing alcohol to minors. In the recent criminal case, Schillinger is accused of punching a partygoer several times in the face during a series of alleged outbursts by drunken adults at her home on Liz Circle in Doylestown, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
The documents state that during the event — which started Sept. 29 and went past midnight — Schillinger’s then-boyfriend allegedly grabbed a 16-year-old by the neck for intervening in a fight between the couple and hit a 15-year-old in the face during an argument over football. According to the allegations in court papers, her intoxicated mother also punched the older teen in the eye and chased him around the kitchen island. Police said they had cellphone recordings of some of these reported events.
To escape the unruly adults, several minors started making their way out of the home, even as Schillinger ordered them to stay, court documents allege.
Cellphone footage showed that as the teens gathered in the foyer Schillinger lunged toward one partygoer before others began restraining her. That individual told police Schillinger struck him three times with a closed fist but that he wasn’t injured, according to the affidavit.
Schillinger had been throwing a 17th birthday party for her daughter that night, hosting about 20 teens in her basement, where there was a bar stocked with New Amsterdam vodka and Malibu Bay Breeze rum, police wrote in the affidavit. In addition to supplying the underage group with alcohol, she allegedly poured liquor for the teens, asked them to take a shot with her and played beer pong with them, witnesses later told authorities.
State law makes it illegal to serve or allow minors to drink alcohol.
One of the teen’s parents called police early the morning of Sept. 30 to report the assaults and the underage drinking at Schillinger’s home. Investigators interviewed multiple teens who had attended the party, the affidavit states.
This wasn’t the first time police visited Schillinger’s home — which she’s been renting since the spring — for reports of an underage party, according to court documents.
Emergency dispatch data provided by the Bucks County Emergency Service Division logged at least four different calls at the address.
Buckingham Township police responded to a noise complaint call and possible underage party at Schillinger’s home on Sept. 24, the weekend before the birthday party, according to 911 data and court records.
Police reported in one affidavit spotting a number of beer cans strewn around the property and street that night. They also saw about 20 teens dart into the home and, when they tried speaking with Schillinger, found her to be “intoxicated and uncooperative,” the affidavit states.
Authorities responded to another noise complaint at Schillinger’s home involving “intoxicated subjects” just after midnight on Sept. 29, though an affidavit says police only made contact with Schillinger’s then-boyfriend, Shan Wilson, that night.
Schillinger is scheduled for a late January preliminary hearing. Her mother, Danette Bert, and Wilson were charged with assault and harassment in connection with the party, but those charges were withdrawn when they pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in early December, court records show.
In an email, Schillinger said that her case had been dropped and suggested Wilson, whom she described as an “angry ex boyfriend,” was behind the accusations. However, online court records show the case is still active, and a spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that the charges are not being dismissed.
Schillinger has not responded to a request for further comment, including why she believes the charges against her were dropped.
While Wilson did contact the USA Today Network about the incident, the affidavit against Schillinger did not include any statements from him and relied instead on the testimony of teenage witnesses and the cellphone footage.
“Ms. Schillinger has dedicated her life to public service,” Schillinger’s attorney Matthew Brittenburg said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “Additionally, she has always been a law abiding citizen. Ms. Schillinger looks forward to the opportunity to defend against these allegations.”
Who is Clarice Schillinger? Dissatisfied with school closures that followed the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Schillinger created a political committee to help fund school board candidates who made strict adherence to in-person education their top campaign promise.
That PAC, Keeping Kids In School, focused more closely to school districts near Schillinger’s former home in Ambler, Montgomery County, by giving out thousands of dollars to smaller PACs backing slates of candidates running on an “open schools” platform.
Bucks County venture capitalist and Central Bucks parent Paul Martino took notice of Schillinger’s PAC before the municipal primary in May 2021, and the two created Back To School PA later that summer.
Martino initially put up $500,000 of his own money for Back To School PA to disburse $10,000 checks to local school board races across the state.
From 2021, more on Back To School PA:Meet the local parents spending $500K to support school board candidates statewide
Schillinger told the conservative news organization Broad+Liberty after that year’s election that Back To School saw an “incredible win” with 113 of 182 candidates supported by the PAC winning elections.
Back To School took credit for flipping at least six school districts in that story, including Pennridge and Quakertown Community school districts in Bucks County; Harrisburg City in Dauphin County; Hempfield in Lancaster County; Palmyra in Lebanon County; and Southeastern in York County.
The PAC also gave $10,000 to Bucks Families for Leadership, which was an earlier PAC Martino created and funded backing Republican candidates in the 2021 Central Bucks school board race.
Three of the five Central Bucks Republicans that ran in 2021 made it onto the board, but this year’s municipal election saw Democrat candidates sweep five seats and take a 6-3 majority.
New CBSD board pauses old policies:New Democrat-led board in Central Bucks takes control, reverses controversial policies
While Schillinger’s original PAC and Back To School were described as bipartisan and focused on the single-issue of school closures by her and Martino, most of the candidates endorsed were Republican and often opposed to other pandemic mitigations like requiring masks in schools.
Schillinger threw her hat in the ring for public office in 2022 joining eight other candidates in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor. Schillinger finished fourth, gaining over 148,000 votes of the 1.2 million cast for that office.
Schillinger announced that Back To School PA would be going national during a July 25, 2022, episode of 1210 WPHT’s The Dom Giordano Program.
“Back To School USA is really going to be focused on putting candidates in place that will put our children and their education first,” Schillinger said. “Right now, we are not doing that. We are more focused on these woke and gender ideas.”
More on 2023 school board races:Inside this year's fight over Pa. school board seats and what happens in the classroom
A website for the national PAC, created in October 2021, is no longer publicly accessible.
Martino told Lehigh Valley News in September that Back To School USA was “more of an idea right now” but indicated Schillinger was still involved in a fundamental way.
He declined to comment on the charges against Schillinger but wrote in an email this week that Back To School USA “never got off the ground” because other projects took priority last year.