Posted on 04/14/2011 5:22:09 PM PDT by John W
Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter has been found guilty of unlawful contact with minors and five lesser charges after a three-day trial in Monroe County Court on charges stemming from an online sex sting.
Ritter, 49, of Delmar, N.Y., was found guilty of unlawful contact with a minor for masturbating on a Web camera and engaging in a sexually graphic online chat with an undercover Barrett Township police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl in 2009.
The jury deliberated for more than six hours after the prosecution and defense both gave closing arguments in the morning.
During the trial, the defense portrayed Ritter as a family man and decorated veteran, even suggesting he could be a victim of a conspiracy for his outspoken criticism of the 2003 Iraq war. Ritter's legal team tore apart the techniques used by Barrett Township officer Ryan Venneman in conducting the sting.
Meanwhile, the prosecution pointed to similar accusations surrounding Ritter in New York state back in 2001. In both incidents, he was accused of arranging to meet with teenage girls – who turned out to be undercover cops.
Ritter was never arrested in the first case, receiving only a warning, and the charges were later dropped in the second incident after he agreed to seek professional help.
Ritter said his controversial 1998 resignation from his U.N. job drove him into a self-destructive depression that led to those incidents. He said he knew the teenage girls he met online were really undercover officers.
As to the most recent charges against him, Ritter said he once again was feeling depressed, but thought the “girl” he was chatting with was really an adult playing out a fantasy of being a teen who likes older men.
Ritter, 49, of Delmar, N.Y., was the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector in Iraq following the first Gulf War. He accused the United States government and U.N. of failing to take action when Iraq blocked inspectors from suspected weapons sites in 1998, leading to his resignation.
But he later became an outspoken critic of the 2003 Iraq war, insisting the country had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.
Check back at PoconoRecord.com for more on the verdict.
Total silence from Wee Willy Pitt.....
He’s done this sort of thing with underage girls before, and it was covered up.
I guess they didn't tear apart enough of the officer's techniques, since the guy was found guilty...
If he could do that no one is safe eh!
Still, we know about those other times because the “cover ups” didn’t work ~
It’s speculated that Sadam supplied him with a bevy of young flesh to obtain the desired inspection results.
There are no 15 yo girls on the internet...
This is sooooo sweeeet.
He was a creeeep.
Maybe he thought he would get 72 young virgins.
So, this guy who showed up an the news saying there were no WMD’s is a pervert.
So, why is this NOW in the open? Does he know OTHER stuf and needs to be discredited??
What is the rest of this story? It is too convenient.
One is left to wonder if Scott Ritter changed his story on Iraq because possibly Saddam held such incriminating evidence against this man.
um...it wasn’t Ritter posing as a 15 year old girl....it was a cop.
He went in person to a Burger King to meet a “date” one time. That’s more pro-active that just online solicitation.
Skinner is weeping..
And burned twice stupid
Just commenting on the very long sentence. It’s like the guy who got shot in the lobby
Everybody who is anybody knows Ritter is a perv.
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