Sex sting in Poconos nets former chief U.N. weapons inspector(Scott Ritter)

[Craftsman]

By Andrew Scott
Pocono Record Writer
January 14, 2010
A former chief United Nations weapons inspector is accused of contacting what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room, engaging in a sexual conversation and showing himself masturbating on a Web camera.

Scott Ritter of Delmar, N.Y., who served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and who was an outspoken critic of the second Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq, is accused of contacting what turned out to be a Barrett Township police officer posing undercover as a teen girl.

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Time Magazine Profile: Scott Ritter in His Own WordsCNN 2003: Ex-arms inspector, war foe Ritter confirms 2001 arrestFOXNews 2003: Scott Ritter: Timing of Arrest Reports SuspiciousU.K. Guardian 2003: Ritter cries foul at sex arrest 'smear'U.S. Tour of Duty: Scott Ritter BioPBS Frontline: Spying on Saddam, Interview with Scott Ritter Multimedia
Criminal Court Docket: Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter (PDF File)Affidavit of Probable Cause: Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter (WARNING: Extremely Graphic Content) (PDF File) Read the Affidavit of Probable Cause
WARNING: Extremely Graphic Content

The police affidavit gives the following account:

Officer Ryan Venneman was posing as 15-year-old "Emily" in an online chat room when he was contacted by someone using the name "Delmarm4fun." This person, later identified as Ritter, told "Emily" he was a 44-year-old male from Albany, N.Y.


http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100114/NEWS/1140319

[slackmaster]

1. Oops

[Myrina]

2. ... article lists 2 other incidents in 2001 that he got out of ...

He's a perv. Sad.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Hope he gets a fair trial and that justice is done.

His days as a participant in the national discussion are over.

[Don Caballero]

4. Good. Now he will go away.

Never liked his conspiracy theories.

[lib2DaBone]

5. Are we talking the Same Scott Ritter?

The guy who spent 12 years in the Marines...weapons inspector?

This affidavit is from February 9, 2009? And they are just now moving on it?

The timing on this seems rather suspicious, since Ritter came out last week with a scathing OP Ed against the MIC war in Afpakistan.

Red herring Swiftboat alert...

[cali]

6. they have a tape of him masturbating and this is the third incident of this

type he's been involved in.

[SoCalDem]

7. or just another middle aged guy with a perversion & a secret life?

People forget that perverted men usually have perfectly "normal" other lives.. the ones they show everyone.. It stinks that he seemed to be a sane voice in the wilderness...about the war & military policy, but his secret life undid him.. like many others before him:puke:

[leveymg]

11. Those who are easily compromised are easily recruited.

Few know this about Ritter, but he was the guy who planted the idea of "mobile bio-weapons labs" in Ahmad Chalabi's brain during a meeting they had in Chalabi's London apartment in 1998 when Ritter was a UN weapons inspector. Sure enough, several months later, "Curve Ball" showed up seeking asylum in Germany, claiming he had details about anthrax labs being built by Iraq. We all know the rest. See, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/07/040607fa_fact1

Ritter never explained why he was meeting with Chalabi, or whose idea it was. Here's Jane Meyer's account in The New Yorker:

* from the issue
* cartoon bank
* e-mail this

The meeting took place in Chalabi’s apartment, on Conduit Street in Mayfair. Half a dozen Arab servants served tea, Ritter recalled. Chalabi sat on a couch, taking notes, “playing the overlord.” (Ahmed Alawi, an I.N.C. official, also attended the meeting.)

“I should have asked him what he could give me,” Ritter said. “Instead, I let him ask me, ‘What do you need?’ ” The result, he said, was that “we made the biggest mistake in the intelligence business: we identified all of our gaps.” Over the next several hours, Ritter said, he outlined most of the U.N. inspectors’ capabilities and theories, telling Chalabi how they had searched for underground bunkers with ground-penetrating radar. He also told Chalabi of his suspicion that Saddam may have had mobile chemical- or biological-weapons laboratories, which would explain why investigators hadn’t been able to find them. “We made that up!” Ritter said. “We told Chalabi, and, lo and behold, he’s fabricated a source for the mobile labs.” (The I.N.C. has been accused of sponsoring a source who claimed knowledge of mobile labs.) When Ritter left the U.N., in August, 1998, there was still no evidence of mobile weapons laboratories. Chalabi’s people, Ritter said, eventually supplied detailed intelligence on Saddam’s alleged W.M.D. programs, but “it was all crap.”

Ritter had one other memorable encounter with Chalabi. Six months after the London meeting, Ritter was feeling dispirited. U.N. investigators had discovered trace evidence of VX nerve gas on warheads in Iraq; he was concerned that Saddam was still hiding something. Chalabi invited him to the town house in Georgetown, and they discussed the VX discovery. Chalabi then talked to Ritter about doing intelligence work for the I.N.C.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/07/040607fa_fact1?currentPage=6#ixzz0ccCeejq9

[Garbo 2004]

12. Docs show investigation & charges long predate an op ed from last week. nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. DUPLICATE TOPIC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7462237

[lib2DaBone]

9. Wow.. I read the older thread... Unbelievable...

He just doesn't fit the profile? And I can't believe that a man in his position could be that stupid? If he got caught once.. any perve worth his salt would know that law enforcement would be watching him?

Is the video of him allegedly masturbating still available? Has anyone seen it? Does it look like Ritter in the Video?

I could be wrong... but what a sad disappointment for the anti-war voices. Especially on a year-old affidavit coming out of some podunk town in he Poconos... doesn't make sense.

[hlthe2b]

10. It would not the the first time someone could be so paradoxically

smart and courageous, while simultaneously creepy... But, it is depressing, if true.

[cali]

13. you clearly don't know anything about compulsive behaviors and sexual deviancy. n/t

[SoCalDem]

14. on the contrary.. many of these men feel above it all..too smart to get "caught"

and the adrenaline rush of "beating the rap" when they are caught, questioned & released, has to be a major high..

The anxiety of pushing the envelope is part of it.. He KNEW he had to be "careful", but his urges would not allow it...and so he kept doing it..

It's the reason why so many ordinary people are stunned when they find out about the scoutmaster, the preacher, the mayor, the pillar of the community, the coach etc.. If a guy is in his 40's (or older) when they finally get nailed, rest assured that there are HUNDREDS (or more) of kids in their wake.. the ones they used and never got caught for.

[WilliamPitt]

15. delete

[cali]

16. The link leads to a story published today and this is not the 2003 story

sorry, will. wish it weren't so.

[WilliamPitt]

17. Yeah, I checked after I posted.

It all sounded so familiar.

:grr: