A conservative parents’ rights advocate and former candidate for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania is accused of providing alcohol for teens attending her daughter’s 17th birthday party and punching an 18-year-old as some teens tried to leave the Buckingham Township house.
According to court documents, Clarice Schillinger, 36, hosted the underage drinking party Sept. 29, at a house she rented in the 3900 block of Liz Circle. During the party, police said, Schillinger told the approximately 15 to 20 minors ages 15 to 18 to stay in the basement, where there was a bar stocked with vodka and rum. Police said Schillinger not only provided the alcohol but also poured shots, drank with the minors and participated in drinking games.
Schillinger, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor as a Republican, and who was active in a PAC supporting school board candidates that opposed COVID-19 lockdowns and more, was charged Oct. 26 with simple assault, harassment and furnishing alcohol to minors. She is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 29.
Asked for comment, her attorney, Matthew Brittenburg, said via email that, “Ms. Schillinger has dedicated her life to public service. Additionally, she has always been a law abiding citizen. Ms. Schillinger looks forward to the opportunity to defend against these allegations.”
According to court documents, police were called to the house Schillinger rented just before 3:15 a.m. Sept. 30 regarding an assault the caller said had just taken place there. It was the second time police had been called to the same party; they had been at the house just prior to midnight Sept. 29 for a noise complaint involving intoxicated people.
Police had also been called to the house at around midnight Sunday, Sept. 24, for a possible underage drinking party. They said they found multiple beer cans around the property and in the street, and that approximately 20 minors ran into the house when police arrived. Schillinger was intoxicated and uncooperative with police, according to court records.
At the birthday party, during the early morning hours of Sept. 30, police said a disturbance between intoxicated adults broke out, causing the teens to want to leave the house. Police said Schillinger’s intoxicated boyfriend, Shan Wilson, had punched a 15-year-old in the face, causing Schillinger to escort Wilson upstairs to the second floor.
They said another teen was assaulted upstairs by Wilson, and the same teen told police Schillinger’s intoxicated mother, Danette Bert, then punched him in his left eye, prompting teens to start leaving the house. Bert chased the youth around the kitchen before assaulting a 17-year-old girl, police said, adding “this portion of the night was recorded from two separate phones.”
While what police described as multiple minors were gathering by the front door preparing to leave the house in defiance of Schillinger’s orders to stay, Schillinger punched an 18-year-old boy in the face three times, police said. The youth told police he was not injured.
Police said a video shows a group of teens gathering in the front foyer and Schillinger “quickly lunging at a subject and subsequently having to be restrained.”
A spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said Wilson and Bert entered guilty pleas to summary offenses at the local district court on Dec. 4.
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