Posted on 01/19/2003 1:15:49 AM PST by kattracks
ALBANY - Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was secretly prosecuted in Albany County in 2001 after he was snared in an Internet sex sting operation, law enforcement sources told the Daily News.Ritter, who lives in the Albany suburb of Delmar, is now a high-profile critic of President Bush's war preparations.
He was arrested by Colonie Police in June 2001 on a misdemeanor charge after he allegedly had a sexual discussion on the Internet with an undercover investigator he thought was an underage girl, law enforcement sources disclosed on condition of anonymity.
The case was sealed, and Colonie officials declined to release the arrest records, explaining the matter was adjourned in local court in contemplation of dismissal.
The Schenectady Daily Gazette reported yesterday that Albany District Attorney Paul Clyne fired veteran Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Preiser last week for failing to inform him of the case against Ritter.
Clyne said that as a "sensitive" case, it should have been brought to his attention.
Ritter, who has made frequent appearances on network television after speaking to the Iraq National Assembly last year, could not be reached for comment.
Joe Mahoney
Wow, that is SO right, and I'd never thought of it before. But Hansen did, too, didn't he?
I cannot get over that he is the ONLY person to have spoken about this, and no one has asked him WHY he was in such a place!
Good point. They get wind of it through their miniions in the Justice Dept, arrange to have the charges sealed, and flip the guy to do their bidding. Makes a lot of sense, and fits their MO (...FBI files).
Is this a pre-emptive disclosure to cover things for those who were meddling? Like Senator Pantsuit?
Look for the "I was abused as a kid" or "I was only doing research" alibi from Ritter.
A clerk, or a cop, who has a brother in the Marines and got fed up, is the most likely explanation.
I want to go back to Ritter's comments that he had seen children prisoners.... That little tid-bit slipped out in one of his rants, and I think it is quite important.
MM... when did the "slip" happen? This case is extraordinary in its lack of information. I've posted some pertinent questions that haven't been answered on Post 173. I, like you, sure would like to see some answers.
I will see if I can find a written source on the net.
Homeland Security probably got suspicious of Ritter's weird behavior and launched an investigation into drug use, maybe, and uncovered the internet dalliances.
Things are heating up now, lots of deployments lately that weren't happening a year ago, and I've seen Ritter on TV quite a bit in the past week.
Who knows? I'm speculating just like everyone else. I think it's possible someone just got totally fed up by something Ritter said recently, or just found out how to contact the media anonymously...
I've paid particular attention to MM and anniegetyourgun and WVNan and there's one more but I can't remember her moniker. I try to pay particular to the female responses because I'm a simple Texas redneck of the male variety and my main character is a female hell-cat and I need to know how she thinks. So I've built a composite based on many, many others.
MM and annie are two of my favorites because they both go for the jugular...but they usually have their claws retracted unless someone attacks them first. You know the kind...the kind that can dot your eye yet five minutes later you still want to open doors for them. WVNan is a kind soul who helped me out one time.
"All inspections stopped in December 1998. That same month, in an article written for the New Republic, Ritter again warned of the continuing Iraqi threat, this time in much greater detail.... [I]n a June 1999 interview with leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a peace organization based in Nyack, New York, he had changed his tune."
What happened to Ritter in those 6 months?
In January 1999, Ritter was to speak at Calvin College "about Iraq's capability to deliver deadly chemical and biological weapons within the next six months and nuclear weapons within the next three years.
http://www.calvin.edu/january/1999/ritter.htm
In a Tuesday March 30, 1999 article in The Guardian, Ritter "...denounced the international embargo on Iraq as immoral and argued for a return to dialogue with the rogue regime," and also accused the U.S. of planting CIA agents within UNSCOM.
Pavolvian describes your continued response to anything government.
We've known each other long enough to not give advice like, the press is not your friend. You're a smart guy and I respect that so do me the same honor and save the platitudes for somebody else.
The ADA was a democrat. Dollars to donuts the presiding judge was a democrat.
The story didn't break until nearly two years after the fact, long after the time it would have been ideal to hang around Scott the Pedophile's neck.
How do you explain this away? There are conspiracies alright and the conspiracy here came from the anti-war and anti-Bush left who wanted to maintain Scott the Traitors credibility.
Why you can't see that is beyond me.
This high-minded quandary reached a sort of apotheosis in a Time magazine interview with Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector turned antiwar crusader. Mr. Ritter, one of the few outsiders to have visited a notorious children's prison in Iraq, was asked what he had seen. "Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there," he said, "because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace."
So, I ask, WHY was he there?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.