"Fun mom" no more: Republican "parental rights" activist gets probation for giving vodka to teens
A former Pennsylvania GOP lieutenant governor candidate and leader in the state’s conservative school board movement, Clarice Schillinger, was sentenced to 12 months probation for a misdemeanor alcohol charge this week. That came after she pleaded no contest Wednesday to supplying alcohol to minors at her daughter’s 17th birthday party last fall, an event that police say ended with drunk adults assaulting intoxicated minors.
Schillinger, a self-styled advocate of "parental rights," spearheaded the right-wing Back to School PA political committee that spent over $500,000 on "flipping woke school boards." In the 2022 GOP primary, she ran for the lieutenant governor and lost.
Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Jude Stephan Corr accused Schillinger, 37, that he found her behavior "offensive" because "you hold yourself out to be one thing in public and another behind closed doors, the Bucks County Courier Times reported.
“Mrs. Schillinger I hope you have learned a lesson from this," Corr added. "You are no longer going to be the fun mom.”
In October, Schillinger was charged in connection with the September 2023 party at her home. Police said that Schillinger, her boyfriend, Shan Wilson, and her mother each physically assaulted some of the teenagers as the night winded down, according to the affidavit outlining the charges.
Wilson and Danette Bert, Schillinger’s mother, were initially charged with simple assault and harassment but those charges were withdrawn. In December, they both pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
At a January court hearing, three teenagers in attendance at the party described a wild evening that included Schillinger taking shots of vodka in the basement of her home and sitting on a boy’s lap. The teenagers said there was a fully stocked bar with New Amsterdam vodka and Malibu rum, with the games of beer pong using hard liquor instead.
While one boy mentioned falling asleep in the bathroom after 15 shots, another described getting slammed into a wall by Wilson when he tried to intervene in a fight between Schillinger and her boyfriend. The third teen, who testified that Schillinger sat in his lap, claimed that the formerly "fun mom" punched him in the face when he tried to leave the party.
In February, Schillinger pleaded guilty to a separate charge of public drunkenness. But she insists her legal problems will not stop her from working "to help educate and protect other Pennsylvania moms and continue her support of Pennsylvania youth and schools,” according to a statement issued on her behalf by a public relations firm.
