Delco judge dismisses case against former district attorney candidate accused of giving alcohol to teens

A prominent Delaware County lawyer and former candidate for district attorney was cleared of criminal charges Thursday after a judge ruled that prosecutors had not proven she supplied alcohol to teenagers during a party at her home last spring.

Beth Stefanide-Miscichowski, 56, was charged in November with corruption of minors, furnishing alcohol to minors, and related crimes in connection with the March 2024 incident, during which police say dozens of high schoolers got drunk at her daughter’s birthday party.

She also was charged with harassment after investigators said she threatened to use her connections in Delaware County to have the Pennsylvania State Police troopers who came to her home fired.

District Judge David R. Griffin dismissed the case against Stefanide-Miscichowski after a two-hour preliminary hearing, saying there was not enough evidence to support the allegations.

State police visited Stefanide-Miscichowski’s home on Glen Mills Drive in Thornbury on March 15, 2024, after her neighbors called in complaints about teenagers drinking outside her home and blocking driveways and a dead-end street with their vehicles, according to testimony Thursday.

When the troopers arrived, they found as many as 100 teens in the backyard and basement, and many of them scattered and ran into nearby woods. Beer cans and empty boxes of beer and liquor were scattered throughout those areas, the troopers said.

Six underage partygoers stopped by the troopers tested positive for alcohol when administered Breathalyzers, according to investigators. They admitted they were drunk and said they had been given alcohol at the home by its owner. Most of those who attended the party were 16 or 17 and still in high school, authorities said.

The troopers spoke with Stefanide-Miscichowski, who was in the kitchen and told them that only 30 people were in her home for the party, and that all of them were in college. She denied serving any of them alcohol.

Stefanide-Miscichowski appeared to be intoxicated, the troopers said, and she became confrontational and demanded that they leave. She then followed them to their vehicles, asked if they knew who she was, and told them she had run for district attorney months earlier, according to evidence presented Thursday.

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“You better watch out,” she told one trooper, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest. “I know a lot of people.”

Stefanide-Miscichowski, a Republican, ran for Delaware County DA in 2023, promising to address — and reverse — what she described as a spike in crime during the tenure of incumbent Jack Stollsteimer.

Stollsteimer defeated Stefanide-Miscichowski, winning 60% of the vote.

Her attorney, Mark Much, said Thursday there was no direct evidence that his client was the one who gave the teenagers alcohol, since none of the them named her. During Thursday’s hearing, he asked the troopers why they didn’t charge any other adults, including Stefanide-Miscichowski’s husband, who were also at the party that evening.

“They have to prove, even foundationally at this level, that it was her who provided the alcohol,” Much said. “Not one of the other adults there, not one of the teenagers there who may have snuck it into the basement without her knowing.”

Deputy Attorney General Madelyn Abry said the suggestion that Stefanide-Miscichowski didn’t realize so many teenagers were drinking and partying in her basement made no sense. And she noted that Stefanide-Miscichowski had attempted to intimidate the troopers by identifying herself as a public figure.

But the judge was not swayed.

State prosecutors handled the case because Stefanide-Miscichowski previously worked in the county district attorney’s office, overseeing juvenile cases.