Ex-scout leader gets 33 years for exploiting children

BOSTON — A former leader of the Boy Scouts has been sentenced to 33 years in federal prison for sexually exploiting more than a dozen children through a social media app.

Federal prosecutors say in addition to his prison term, 25-year-old Matthew Murphy, of Whitman, was also sentenced Monday to 10 years of probation.

Authorities say the investigation began when law enforcement learned that Murphy had posed as a teenage girl on Snapchat to extort nude photographs from a middle school boy in Massachusetts.

Through the investigation, authorities found that Murphy used five separate Snapchat accounts to sexually exploit at least 15 children.

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