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Former DA Named By Grand Jury Fired From Job

Matt Rourke
/
AP
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaking at a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018.

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor has been fired from his job as an attorney for a county youth services office after a report showed that as prosecutor, he stopped an investigation into alleged child abuse by a priest to gain political favor from the Pittsburgh Diocese.

Former Beaver County District Attorney Robert Masters told a grand jury investigating clergy abuse that he wrote a letter to the then-bishop of Pittsburgh in 1964 saying he was halting an investigation to "prevent unfavorable publicity."

He was let go Wednesday.

A report released Tuesday by the grand jury found that hundreds of priests had sexually abused more than 1,000 children in six of Pennsylvania's dioceses over the past seven decades.

Since the report was made public, the attorney general says his office has received over 150 calls and emails from people wanting to "tell their stories and seek justice."

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