FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Steve Pitt, a key adviser to Kentucky’s attorney general, resigned after a newspaper uncovered his role in recommending clemency for a sex offender while working for then-Gov. Matt Bevin.
Pitt had served as counsel and special adviser to Attorney General Daniel Cameron since Cameron was sworn in late last year as the first Republican in decades to be the state’s top prosecutor.
Before that, Pitt held a high-profile job as Bevin’s general counsel during the Republican governor’s single term in office. Pitt defended the state in a series of lawsuits challenging laws putting new restrictions on abortions. He also represented Bevin during the Republican’s many legal feuds with then-Attorney General Andy Beshear, who ousted Bevin in last year’s gubernatorial election.
Pitt did not give a specific reason for his resignation in a letter to Cameron, but said it was “per our ongoing discussions.”
He resigned a few days after the Courier Journal reported that Pitt recommended last year that Bevin pardon or commute the sentence of Dayton Jones, a convicted sex offender, writing, “personally, I think he’s served long enough and should at least get a commutation.”
Bevin freed Jones through an executive order issued on Dec. 9, his last day in office, the Louisville newspaper reported. Jones served just three years of a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to using a sex toy to brutally sodomize a passed-out 15-year-old boy in western Kentucky.
Bevin issued hundreds of pardons between his electoral defeat in November and his final day in office. Several pardons stirred outrage from victims or their families, prosecutors and lawmakers.
The Courier Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the massive number of pardons and commutations issued by Bevin on his way out of office.
Pitt, with his decades of legal experience, was seen as a key addition to Cameron’s staff. Cameron is seen as a rising GOP star and is a protege of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Pitt wished Cameron the best as he continues as the state’s chief law officer and “wherever the Lord may lead you, which I think will be far.”
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