March 19, 2021
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Jennifer M. Schorn will be promoted to first assistant district attorney in the Bucks County D.A.'s Office. Gregg Shore was demoted from that role to after it was discovered he had a side job making food deliveries during work hours.
A top prosecutor in the Bucks County District Attorney's Office was demoted Thursday for working a side job as a Doordash delivery driver, sometimes during the workday of his county job, District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said.
The leadership shakeup will reassign 48-year-old Gregg Shore from first assistant district attorney to deputy district attorney. Jennifer Schorn, who has been serving as chief of trials and chief of the grand jury division, will take over as Bucks County's first assistant district attorney.
Weintraub said that Shore "demonstrated very poor judgment" and violated the office's policies. Shore is using his accrued vacation time to repay the county the money he earned while working on duty.
As the top unelected prosecutor in Bucks County, Shore earned an annual salary of $129,000 as first assistant district attorney.
"What he has done is indefensible," Weintraub said in a statement on Youtube. "Thoughtless, selfish and so stupid. It's senseless."
It would have been expedient to fire Shore, Weintraub said, but the D.A. felt that an objective review of Shore's record meant a demotion was the right course of action.
"I preach second chances. I preach redemption, that people can learn from their mistakes and become better," Weintraub said. "I preach proportionality, that the punishment must fit the infraction. Now, I must practice what I preach."
Shore, a Newtown Township native, was appointed first A.D.A. in 2017, replacing the departing first A.D.A., Michelle Henry. He had previously worked for the Bucks County D.A.'s office in the late 1990s before taking a role in the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office.
Shore also spent seven years with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and then worked as Pennsylvania's deputy secretary of labor from 2011 to 2015. He rejoined the Bucks County D.A.'s Office in 2015.
"A person should be judged for more than just his mistakes," Weintraub said. "While he has no excuse for his conduct, I also note that as an attorney who is always 'on call,' even during nonworking hours as the job dictates, that there was never a lapse in Gregg's availability to us when called upon."
In recent years, Shore notable prosecuted Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz for the 2017 Solebury Township homicides, securing a guilty plea from DiNardo and a jury conviction for Kratz. Both men will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Schorn, a lifelong Bucks County resident, joined the Bucks County D.A.'s office in 1999 and has worked on cold case homicides and cases against sexual offenders for years. She and Weintraub together prosecuted the case against the killers of Grace Packer, the 14-year-old Abington girl who was raped, murdered and dismembered in 2016.
"Jen is a warrior leading us all into battle in our relentless pursuit of justice and is a great example of leadership for us to follow," Weintraub said. "I have had the privilege of working with her on high profile cases, as well as sharing management responsibilities with her over the last several years. She has consistently demonstrated her commitment to this office and its staff, always seeking to help newer A.D.As develop as prosecutors and as people."
