HARRISBURG — A scandal involving pornographic e-mails circulated within the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office widened at the highest level of the judiciary Wednesday when the state’s chief justice said 234 e-mails with sexually explicit material or pornography were sent or received by a fellow justice.

Chief Justice Ron Castille said in a news release that Justice Seamus McCaffery sent most of the e-mails to a now-retired agent with the attorney general’s office, who then forwarded them to others. Castille said the seven-member court is reviewing the matter further.

Neither McCaffery nor his lawyer, Dion Rassias, responded to requests for comment. Rassias told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month he wondered “why a half-dozen private e-mails, allegedly from Justice McCaffery’s personal computer, are front-page news.”

Justice Corry Stevens, a Corbett appointee and the court’s newest member, said the high court has no specific plans to meet to discuss the e-mails, and he suggested it would not be the Supreme Court’s role to investigate further. He said it would be up to McCaffery to decide whether to step down or not.

“I think there’s some fact-finding that needs to be done and that would really not be the Supreme Court, I would think,” Stevens said.

The new details were disclosed after Castille was provided with the e-mails, at his request, by the attorney general’s office Friday. Castille said neither he nor the other five justices was implicated.

McCaffery, 64, was elected as a Democrat seven years ago, after serving as a Philadelphia municipal judge and a member of the state Superior Court, an intermediate appeals court. A former Philadelphia police officer, he also presided over the so-called Eagles Court that operated inside Veterans Stadium on NFL game days.

The circulation of pornography within the attorney general’s office from late 2008 until early 2012 has led three former members of that office to leave their government jobs, including a member of Gov. Tom Corbett’s Cabinet, and a fourth former member to announce Wednesday he would resign at the end of this month.

The announcement by Randy Feathers, appointed by Corbett to the state Board of Probation and Parole, follows claims by Attorney General Kathleen Kane he sent more than three dozen pornographic or sexually explicit e-mails and received more than 400.

Feathers, who supervised agents who investigated Jerry Sandusky, said in a news release he will retire from the $116,000-a-year job at the end of the month.

Feathers said his retirement — after Corbett pressured him to resign — “should not be taken as an acknowledgment of the degree of wrongdoing.”

“I never initiated any of the referenced pornography nor did I ever view any pornographic videos,” wrote Feathers, who did not respond to a request for an interview. “These accusations date back more than five years and my efforts to hire an independent forensic expert to exonerate myself have not been answered.”

He said his decision to retire Oct. 30 was prompted because he can no longer be effective in the job.

His written statement said he has had a “difficult” relationship with Kane, who uncovered the e-mails during a review of how the office handled the Sandusky investigation, a probe she had promised while running for attorney general in 2012.