Sex-sting trial beings for ex-UN weapons inspector

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Associated Press

A detective posing as an underage girl in an online chat room told a former U.N. weapons inspector he was exchanging sexually graphic messages with a 15-year-old, according to testimony Tuesday in the second online sex-sting case involving the former Marine captain.

Barrett Township police Detective Ryan Venneman testified that Iraq war critic Scott Ritter initiated a sexually explicit conversation with him in a Yahoo chat room in February 2009.

Venneman told the court that Ritter gave him his cellphone number and began masturbating on a video chat. Ritter briefly ended the chat after the detective said he was 15, but soon restarted the video chat and masturbated to completion, the detective testified.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Gary Coleman told the jury that Ritter is a "decorated military hero" who didn't believe he was chatting with an underage girl.


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/12/2795006/sex-sting-trial-beings-for-ex.html