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.
Another victim of Arab boy/goat love addiction.
It still smells and sounds like entrapment to me. What he did in the past is just that. He was lured, teased and enticed into the behaviour that eventually convicted him. Then again, where do you draw the line between investigation and anything else?
WITCH HUNT, because nothing else could be pinned on him.
But the “girl” he was chatting with WAS an adult pretending to be a teen who liked older men.
Ritter is arguably as sleazebag, but the notion that online chat, even video chat including lewd behavior, with someone who is not in fact a minor constitutes unlawful contact with a minor is a perversion of reason, law and justice. Evidently thinking about having sex with a nubile 15 year old is now a thoughtcrime.
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.
I thought nobody would ever ask.
You see, while he was searching for the WMDs,
...he found the birth certificate.
Cheers!
I got that from the story.
But the last time it was shushed up.
Not now. I was wondering, since I don’t think that kind of thing is a coincidence.
LOL!!!
So...it's cool with you if a pervert pays to a screw a 20 year old prostitute when he believes he's a 14 year old. Is it cool if he's paying for a gal they claim is 19 when she's really 15?
You paleoFReepers amaze me!
Its about time, and how many years did that take...pervert employed by UN
Sheesh,that man is a true jack of all trades.
“the defense portrayed Ritter as a family man ...”
Yep, just your average dedicated family man who picks up minors online. Repeatedly.
Actually, my objection was to the tactics of the state in this case. If the state wants to skate this close to entrapment to catch ephebophiles, they could at least provide part-time jobs to teenagers so that those caught would actually be guilty of unlawful contact with a minor. Should someone be guilty of grand theft because they thought the thing they were stealing was worth $100,000, when in fact it was worth $0.50? I think not. No more is online chat with an adult unlawful contact with a minor, even if the one chatting thinks he’s chatting with a minor.
I also do have problems with the bizarre state of sexual mores as reflected in the law. What would be sensible would be to outlaw fornication. If our society is not willing to do so, the fiction that sexually mature human beings are “children” because they have not reached some arbitrarily defined age is an absurd basis for the definition of crimes. To extend those crimes to include crimes on the basis of pretended age is even more outrageous, and as I said, a perversion of reason, law and justice.
Just another immoral liberal jerkoff
Thou protesteth too much. Did David Hansen catch you on camera once on Dateline?
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