CLEARFIELD, Pa. (WPVI) — A Clearfield County man is facing thousands of criminal charges, including rape and sexual assault of a minor, in connection with the alleged abuse of a teenage girl over several years, according to court documents.

Nicholas Allen Spencer, 37, was arrested this week and charged with 5,538 offenses stemming from an investigation that began in May.

According to a criminal complaint, the investigation started after a 16-year-old girl told police she had been receiving sexually explicit messages from Spencer since she was about 12 years old.

During an interview with police on May 17, the girl said she had deleted messages that were sexual in nature, investigators said. Authorities reported that they were able to observe messages sent by Spencer to the girl that same day.

According to the complaint, those messages instructed her to delete communications and included statements about going to jail.

Spencer denied the allegations. Court documents state that he also told investigators he could not recall the most recent message, despite it having allegedly been sent only hours earlier.

On July 28, the girl was interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center of Clearfield County. During that interview, she reported that Spencer had raped her “more times than she can count,” according to the criminal complaint.

The complaint also states that she recalled having nightmares when she was 13 and fearing that others would find out.

The girl said she did not disclose the assaults during her police interview in May.

An arrest warrant was issued on Tuesday.

He is being held at the Clearfield County Prison after being denied bail.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 12.

A Republican state lawmaker is voicing concern over a mandatory DEI class at Penn State Dickinson Law recently flagged during a congressional hearing that led to the law school dean’s apparent demotion.

“A college institution that’s receiving federal funds in my district should be following the federal law,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Barbara Gleim said in a recent interview with The College Fix, citing President Donald Trump’s executive order to end illegal discrimination in higher education

But the law school teaches “critical pedagogy” intended to inspire “a political act of liberation” in students, she said via email.

“This goes way beyond what should be actually taught in class for a law student,” Gleim said.

At issue is a mandatory course called “Race & Equal Protection of Law” that is still a requirement at both Penn State law school campuses for the coming 2026-27 school year, according to the Dickinson Law fall 2026 course list. 

The course remains required even though it was the subject of a federal civil rights complaint in May and a heated Congressional testimony in late July before a House Oversight Committee.

Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog organization, filed the complaint to several federal agencies accusing the law school of pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and “institutional antiracism” in its curriculum, admissions, and hiring. It cited the school’s own Strategic Plan as evidence.

David Blackman, a former student at Penn State Dickinson Law, testified on July 22 that the course, required for first-year law students, is designed “to teach the structure of the nation’s constitutional democracy through the ‘lens of enslavement and racism.’”

Blackman was denied a waiver for the course, prompting him to withdraw from Dickinson Law. 

He told The College Fix the course’s curriculum seeks to discredit the law itself as a tool of racism.

“For years now, every law student who’s come through Penn State Dickinson Law has had to sit and be told that law enforcement is racist, the law is racist, and it needs to be overturned,” Blackman said via email. 

“These are 1Ls who decided they wanted to go fight and uphold the law in our nation’s courts, and they’re being told that the very laws that they chose to defend are racist and should be overturned,” he said.

Blackman, in his testimony, said the course was created in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.

“On my very first day of class, faculty … framed the course’s intent as dismantling ‘systems of oppression,’ a mandate they described as being ‘baked into’ the law school’s DNA,” Blackman told lawmakers.

Students were taught that “the fundamental problem with the American legal system is ‘white supremacy’ and ‘patriarchy,’ framing the justice system purely as an instrument of ‘racial subordination,’” he said.

The Penn State law school dean behind the controversial course stepped down as dean just days after the hearing. In a news release, the university announced Dean Danielle Conway would return to the school’s faculty “effective immediately.”

“In 2021, Conway launched the Antiracist Development Institute at Penn State Dickinson Law, which aims to dismantle structures that scaffold systemic racial inequality using a three-pillar approach based on systems design, institutional antiracism and critical pedagogy,” the news release stated.

“She also was instrumental in guiding Penn State Dickinson Law’s development of a civil rights, equal protection and social justice certificate program,” it added.

Penn State Dickinson Law and Protect the Public’s Trust did not return The College Fix’s request for comment.

Although Penn State’s news release simply said Conway was leaving her position as dean, Intellectual Property Law Clinic Director Jonathan D’Silva said Conway “characterized the move as a termination” in a call with her own executive staff, Penn Live reported Tuesday.

MORE: Penn State law school still requires students to take ‘antiracism’ class

SOMERSET COUNTY, Pa (WJAC) — A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday in Somerset County with plans to honor some of Pennsylvania’s heroes.

The ‘Remember Me Rose Garden,’ near Shanksville, serves as a living tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who died defending the nation on September 11, 2001.

Now, this hallowed ground is being broken again for another living memorial, this one dedicated to the firefighters who sacrificed for their neighbors.

State Senator Pat Stefano says those same values of courage and sacrifice aboard Flight 93 are embodied every day by our first responders.

“When the alarm sounds, when the scanners go off, firefighters don’t know what awaits them. They just simply answer the call. They run towards danger while everyone else is running away.”

State Representative Carl Metzgar remembers where he was when that plane went down and the ground shook. He says the men and women of Somerset County took action.

“They went and got their rifles. They gathered together because we didn’t know what was happening that day, but we knew whoever it was who was doing that to us was not gonna make it past Dividing Ridge; we were holding the line at Dividing Ridge.”

Diane Ginter is president of the Pennsylvania Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Her husband Craige died while fighting a fire in 2021 and the happenstance of Thursday August 6th has special significance.

“Today is his birthday. He would have been 63 years old today.”

She says they are still in need of donations in order to start construction for the memorial.

“If every fire company in the state of Pennsylvania could donate $300, we would have this monument started tomorrow.”

Ginter says 840 Pennsylvania firefighters have died in the line of duty since 1836 and unfortunately, that number is sure to grow.

Once the monument is built, the families of Pennsylvania’s fallen first responders will have a place to reflect and remember.