Appeals court revives stalking, harassment charges against Penn State professor
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A Pennsylvania appeals court revived stalking and harassment charges against a Penn State professor, ruling Tuesday that a Centre County judge improperly dismissed the case by applying the wrong legal standard and resolving factual disputes too early.
A three-judge state Superior Court panel reversed Centre County Judge Brian Marshall’s order dismissing the misdemeanor charges against Matthew B. Parkinson, the director of The Learning Factory.
Marshall dismissed the charges in March 2025 as time-barred, but the Superior Court said Centre County prosecutors presented sufficient evidence at the preliminary hearing stage for the case to proceed.
Despite the victory for prosecutors, Parkinson could either ask the Superior Court to reconsider or appeal to the state Supreme Court. Defense attorney Tim Bowers told the Centre Daily Times they are weighing their options and expect to make a decision in the coming days.
“We believe in his innocence,” Bowers said.
Centre County First Assistant District Attorney Joshua Andrews told the CDT prosecutors appealed to ensure victims are “afforded the full protections of the law.”
Parkinson’s status at Penn State was not immediately clear. A university spokesperson said they were unable to immediately comment. Parkinson, 53, of College Township, had previously been placed on administrative leave, but that was lifted after the charges were dismissed.
A woman testified in December 2024 that she and her husband met Parkinson and his wife in the early 2010s when they kept running into each other outside of church.
The friendship lasted nearly a decade, but began to sour when Parkinson began visiting her unannounced at her job in downtown State College. The couples stopped taking trips together and the woman said the relationship became uncomfortable and strange.
She told State College police Parkinson watched her eat lunch from his office window, which she said left her “thoroughly creeped out” and physically sick. She estimated more than 40 encounters over a six-month period in 2022.
Despite being told in September of that year that he should not communicate with her anymore, Parkinson sent her an email containing a job opportunity at the university and approached her car in the church parking lot.
Prosecutors also alleged Parkinson sent the woman an email in March 2023 asking to speak and approached her teenage daughter at a church camp in June 2024.
“Considering this conduct in the context of the 10-year friendship between these two couples that began at that same church and only recently soured, the Court did not find the three communications that occurred after September 2022 to be indicative of a continuing course of stalking conduct,” Marshall wrote in a July opinion.
In a decision authored by Superior Court Judge Judith Ference Olson, the panel said it disagreed with Marshall’s assessment and found he “usurped the function of a factfinder at trial.”
“At this stage of the proceedings, the trial court’s sole function was to determine whether probable cause existed to require Parkinson to stand trial on the charges as contained in the complaint,” the panel wrote. “Instead, the trial court assessed Parkinson’s subjective intent, determined that his communications were legitimate and not intended to cause harm, and, thus, usurped the fact-finding functions of a trial.”
The stalking and harassment charges Parkinson stands to face are misdemeanors. County prosecutors did not challenge the dismissal of a summary harassment charge.
Parkinson’s bail was previously set at $10,000 unsecured.