Former GOP lieutenant governor candidate held on charges including punching a teen at her daughter’s birthday party

Teenagers who attended a boozy 17th birthday party that former GOP lieutenant governor candidate Clarice Schillinger hosted for her daughter last fall described on Monday a drunken scene to a Bucks County judge — including descriptions of Schillinger sitting on a boy’s lap and repeatedly taking shots of vodka during the party in her Doylestown home.

One teenager also testified that “Ms. Clarice” punched him in the chin as he left the house with other friends — their departures spurred by Schillinger’s boyfriend growing increasingly drunk and belligerent, allegedly assaulting another teen who testified.

After hearing their testimony, Judge Stacy Wertman held Schillinger — who led a political action committee that targeted school boards — over for trial on charges including simple assault, harassment and furnishing alcohol to minors.

Here’s what the teenagers said during Monday’s hearing, and what happens next:

Testifying at the district court in Jamison, three teenagers — whom prosecutors identified by their initials to protect their privacy — told their stories about the night of Sept. 29, when they were invited to a surprise birthday party at Schillinger’s house on Liz Circle for her daughter, who was turning 17.

In a group chat before the party, two girls said that Schillinger, 36, had told them, “You could bring alcohol,” said one of the teens, a 16-year-old high school sophomore.

“It was common knowledge” that you could drink at Schillinger’s house, the boy said. “You didn’t have to ask.”

Inside the house, the basement was “festive,” decked out in neon colors, the boy said. There was also a bar, and a beer pong table in the back.

The bar was stocked with New Amsterdam vodka and Malibu rum, the teens said. Schillinger, her boyfriend and her parents were drinking upstairs, but the teens said Schillinger was in the basement with them for part of the night.

Another boy, also a high school sophomore, testified that he was Schillinger’s partner in beer pong, which they played with vodka. He said he took about 15 shots and remembered the night up until he fell asleep in a bathroom.

The other sophomore said he observed Schillinger repeatedly taking shots — estimating “five to eight.” He said he wasn’t drinking, but almost all of the 15 to 20 people at the party were.

At one point, he went upstairs to find his girlfriend, who was throwing up in a bathroom. As he waited for her outside, he said he heard Schillinger and her boyfriend, Shan Wilson, arguing. Schillinger said that Wilson had punched a wall, the boy said.

He said he asked Schillinger if she wanted Wilson to leave, and she said yes. Then Wilson “grabbed my neck and slammed me into the wall.”

The third teenager who testified, an 18-year-old freshman at Rosemont College, said he also wasn’t drinking. But he said Schillinger was — at one point, sitting on his lap while he was lounging on a beanbag.

Schillinger told the teenager that “You’re my favorite,” he said. To “get out of the situation,” he said, he told her he had to go to the bathroom.

The teenager said he spent the night “making TikToks with my friends, just chilling.” Around 3 a.m., he said, the boy allegedly assaulted by Wilson came down into the basement crying.

A group of kids moved to leave, and that “started a whole confrontation,” the teenager said. In the kitchen, Schillinger’s mother, Danette Bert, started fighting with one girl; the two were hitting each other, the teenager said.

Once the group left, he said, they realized one of their friends was still in the house. He went back to the front door, where he said Schillinger “grabbed me by my shirt and hit me,” punching him with a closed fist.

“’My only thing I asked is that nobody leave the house,’” the teen said Schillinger told him.

Schillinger’s lawyer, Matthew Brittenburg, argued that the teenagers’ testimony wasn’t enough to justify a charge of furnishing alcohol to minors, since they didn’t witness who put it in the house.

He also said Schillinger’s actions didn’t constitute simple assault, noting the size difference between her and the teenager she allegedly hit — who is 6′8″. The teen said he wasn’t injured.

Assistant District Attorney Sarah Heimbach said prosecutors had shown enough evidence of Schillinger’s role in providing the alcohol, and the alleged assault, which involved a closed fist punch to the face — “not a slap, or playful jab.”

In addition to Schillinger, her boyfriend and mother were charged with simple assault and harassment. But those charges were withdrawn, and both pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in December, court records show.

Schillinger was released on her own recognizance Monday. A formal arraignment was scheduled for March 1. Schillinger declined to comment as she left the courtroom.

Schillinger has held a prominent role in local school politics. She led a political action committee, Keeping Kids in School, that opposed pandemic school closures, before being tapped by Bucks County venture capitalist Paul Martino in 2021 to lead the Back to School PA PAC that poured more than $500,000 of Martino’s money into school board races, largely backing Republican candidates.

In 2022, she ran as a Republican for lieutenant governor, but lost in the May primary.

She continued to work with Martino last year as executive director of a federal PAC he launched, Back to School USA, which said it aimed to combat “liberal teachers’ unions and special interest groups that are responsible for indoctrinating our children.”