Ex-weapons inspector (Scott Ritter) convicted in sex case

[djg21]

Source: Albany Times Union

An eastern Pennsylvania jury has convicted a former U.N. weapons inspector from Delmar, who was nabbed in an online sex sting, on all but one count.

Jurors in Monroe County convicted Scott Ritter, 49, on six of seven counts, including unlawful contact with a minor.


Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Ex-weapons-insp...

[grasswire]

1. Is this the same charge as that nearly a decade ago??

The story doesn't say.

[djg21]

2. This is a new charge/conviction.

nt

[Keith Bee]

3. Don't contradict The Man

He will cook up shit on you.

[naaman fletcher]

4. True

but it helps not to be guilty.

[Dr. Strange]

40. Also, don't masturbate in front of a camera.

[PSPS]

5. More thought crime

From the linked article, Ritter's conviction included "unlawful contact with a minor." Then, later in the article, it says he "exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as an underage girl." In other words, no real crime. Only thought crime.

[msanthrope]

37. So if I contract with an undercover cop for your murder, thinking I've got a hit man,

is that just a thought crime????

[Taverner]

6. Whether or not he did this (for a court to decide) that doesn't change that we were lied to

And the war in Iraq was build on those lies

[grasswire]

8. and he was brave enough to challenge the lies

never forget.

[Mnemosyne]

16. Precisely, and the charges do smell bad, imho. K&R n/t

[Taverner]

18. Then so be it, but he was not lying when he told us how we were lied to....

[Mnemosyne]

19. I know he's a truth-teller and think he's being railroaded. He dared to defy 'them'. n/t

[grasswire]

7. how would they know if he masturbated while talking...

...to the adult man who was posing as an underage girl for purposes of entrapment?


Hmmmmmmm?????

What a crock.

[Lithos]

9. Supposedly video chat

n/t

[cascadiance]

11. So it was a one-way video chat?

And supposedly "he" (agent) was posing as a girl? I could understand if this was only text messages, but audio and video and that sort of interaction was "faked"? Hmm....

[Lithos]

14. Don't know

Possibly so,

Here is a quote from an article which gives a bit more detail:

A police detective testified today that Ritter initiated a sexually explicit conversation with him in a Yahoo chat room in February 2009, and that he told Ritter at the beginning of the conversation that he was a 15-year-old girl named Emily.

Detective Ryan Venneman told jurors that Ritter gave him his cellphone number and began masturbating on a video chat. Ritter briefly shut down the webcam after the detective repeated that he was 15, typing that he "didn't want any trouble," but soon restarted the camera and masturbated to completion, the detective testified.

Prosecutors played an extremely graphic 20-minute video of the encounter for the jury.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2...

[cascadiance]

10. He went to the same high school I did overseas...

Wasn't there when he was, but he came there later when my class graduated there later. I chatted with him once at a book signing... Makes me kind of sad. I thought him a better person.

Something's wrong with this sentence though...

Prosecutors say Ritter exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as an underage girl and masturbated even after the undercover officer stressed during the chat that he was a minor.

Hmm... How did they know he masturbsted? Did they spy on him (activate his laptop camera remotely or something of the like)? A lot of people "fantasize" about a lot of things online, and sometimes they "fantasize" and think those they are interacting with are "fantasizing" too. And this person wasn't a real minor either (not that I'd advocate using a real minor for things like this). But I really wonder about some of these stings sometimes.

I still wonder how much they bend procedures to go after people like him who are "targets" for going after, much like Julian Assange has been.

I also knew Patrick Naughton, who was a well known engineer at Sun (and some other big startups he helped start including one that eventually became espn.com) many years back when I worked with him at Sun too. Now in his case, they actually got him to try and "meet" a "minor" in the real world, and if someone goes that far, then I think there might be a case to go after someone. But this case against Ritter sounds kind of fishy.

[2banon]

12. This is their MO

they've been after Ritter since the day he dared to speak out against Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.. and Ritter isn't alone.

Now, I don't know if Ritter is a sexual predator or not, if he's really guilty of any charges leveled at him, then that's one thing. But too often the TPB will cook up sex charges against who they deem as the enemy of the state, mostly to harrass and silence. But it is interesting TPB seem to be able to cook up sex charges against a number of people they want to silence or get out of the way.

[defendandprotect]

20. kr

[EFerrari]

21. Yep.

[msanthrope]

36. He had a sex crimes plea deal long before he pissed off the Bush admin--

"A Pennsylvania judge ruled last week that two Colonie case files involving Ritter be unsealed so they can be used as evidence against him at his upcoming trial.

In the spring of 2001, Colonie police say Ritter twice showed up for meetings with what he believed would be teenage girls. The first time, Ritter was questioned but let go by police who had been posing as a curious 14-year-old girl.

Two months later, Ritter turned up at a fast-food restaurant, where police said they had set up a sexual meeting while posing as a 15-year-old girl. Ritter was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a minor. Despite his national prominence, Ritter's arrest was not publicly announced.

Several months later an Albany County prosecutor agreed to classify Ritter's case as an "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal" (ACOD), an outcome in New York state's criminal law in which a prosecutor agrees to excuse a defendant's behavior in exchange for six months to one year of good behavior. After that time, the case is legally dismissed and the records are sealed from the public as though the incident never occurred. With an ACOD, a defendant becomes legally allowed to deny the arrest occurred, except in special circumstances, such as applying for a job as a police officer or a teacher."



Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Ritter-s-sex-...

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. Ritter is a giant in physical stature, quite a person/presents.

This isn't the first time he got busted for this, it really is hard to imagine he would do something like this.

[Freddie Stubbs]

27. He admitted that he did it, but asserted that he thought he was conversing with an adult

Apparently the jury did not believe him.

[Dokkie]

15. f***

they finally got him with something. Now he cannot criticize the MIC and war mongers in govt. Just sad

[crim son]

17. They have him masturbating on vid for what he believed

was a fifteen year old girl. He's done it before? IMHO, more reason to believe these recent charges. It's too bad, but people, in this situation he isn't one of the good guys.

[Poll_Blind]

22. On the assumption the evidence is genuine, I have to agree.

Lithos posted an excerpt upthread which seemed to indicate he began masturbating during some sort of video chat thing- was told he was speaking with a 15 year old girl- then stopped- then started up the video stream again "to completion".

I think the government has been using some absolutely immoral tactics to bag their quota of those they would like to persecute as sex offenders recently but, again, assuming the facts of the matter are as I read them, I don't see any reason to defend the behavior.

PB

[originalpckelly]

25. What, did they get Pixar to make an animation of him doing it?

It's rather odd to even think you could fake it. Computer technology is not good enough yet to produce lifelike humans.

[djg21]

26. Ritter is a sex offender.

He wasn't entrapped, and jury convicted him of INTENTIONALLY setting out to engage in unlawful sexual activity with a 15-yr old, irrespective of the fact that what
Ritter believed to be a 15 yr old girl was actually an undercover police officer. Ritter's testimony and contrary explanation was found by the jury to be incredible, and his history/pattern of similar offenses unfortunately confirmed that there is no rehabilitation for pedophiles.

Mr. Ritter belongs in prison. Just because is a middle-class, white, white collar worker, who is educated and knowledgeable and espouses political views that we can endorse, he is no less of a pedophile. He should be treated just like every other convicted pedophile.

I really cannot believe that people here would make excuses for him.

[mogster]

23. Clinton, Al Gore, Assange and Ritter

It's a rowdy bunch, eh?
Great way of claring out the opposition to the It.

[Freddie Stubbs]

28. Al Gore????

Rowdy is certainly not a word most would associate with him.

[karynnj]

32. Al Gore was never ever even charged with anything

He was chosen by Clinton partly because he was squeaky clean - a boy scout. Clinton also was never convicted of any sexual offense. (The only such suit where he was indicted, the Paula Jones one, was dismissed.)

I also doubt that Clinton would appreciate being linked with someone who is convicted of being a child predator.

[cascadiance]

34. he was accused by various massage therapists of sexual assault...

Nothing that has officially been verified, but it does go along with a similar "let's get this guy in trouble" meme...

http://www.businessinsider.com/two-more-women-accuse-al...

[karynnj]

35. I think it was only one - and the police at the time found her story unbelievable

Nowhere near the same thing as this.

[eridani]

24. Honestly! You'd think he'd have had a clue that he was being watched

Some self-control would have been in order even if he didn't have critical info to share about Iraq.

[legin]

29. Let's be accurate about this

You decide to point out that the 'powers that be' are doing it wrong, then they will stick it to you.

You know that in advance. Basically you are committing 'Social Suicide'.

The 'powers that be' don't like to be told that they are doing it wrong. It offends their sense of hierarchal order. So you have to pay the 'you're getting a bit above yourself' tariff.

They will dig up something on you, and let's be honest it's a bit difficult to live without acquiring at least one skeleton in the closet. And if they can't find anything then they will make it up.

[Freddie Stubbs]

30. The reality is that Mr. Ritter has a history of this kind of behavior dating back to 2001,

well before he drew the ire of the Bush administration.

[legin]

33. After 'Italian activist found dead in Gaza after abduction'

it would seem that it is not just the 'powers that be' you got to worry about.

[snooper2]

31. People here defending a pervert- (PTB set him up)

Maybe he just has a fetish for fucking minors...and a history of that behavior.

I guess it doesn't matter as long as he is fighting truth to power and takes on the dreaded Bushco.

[msanthrope]

38. A perv with two prior incidents....

Pennsylvania judge ruled last week that two Colonie case files involving Ritter be unsealed so they can be used as evidence against him at his upcoming trial.

In the spring of 2001, Colonie police say Ritter twice showed up for meetings with what he believed would be teenage girls. The first time, Ritter was questioned but let go by police who had been posing as a curious 14-year-old girl.

Two months later, Ritter turned up at a fast-food restaurant, where police said they had set up a sexual meeting while posing as a 15-year-old girl. Ritter was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a minor. Despite his national prominence, Ritter's arrest was not publicly announced.

Several months later an Albany County prosecutor agreed to classify Ritter's case as an "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal" (ACOD), an outcome in New York state's criminal law in which a prosecutor agrees to excuse a defendant's behavior in exchange for six months to one year of good behavior. After that time, the case is legally dismissed and the records are sealed from the public as though the incident never occurred. With an ACOD, a defendant becomes legally allowed to deny the arrest occurred, except in special circumstances, such as applying for a job as a police officer or a teacher.



Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Ritter-s-sex-...

[Green_Lantern]

39. DUers shouldn't defend this guy...I know it is hard for some here to

Not accuse the police of being an arm of some Imperial conspiracy.