Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq is charged in Pennsylvania child-sex sting

Ex-UN weapons inspector charged in child-sex sting

PHILADELPHIA — A longtime U.N. weapons inspector who blamed a 2001 sex-sting arrest on his criticism of the Iraq war has again been charged in an online child-sex case, and this time he was caught on camera.

Scott Ritter, 48, of Delmar, N.Y., engaged in a sexually graphic online chat with an undercover police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl nearly a year ago, police in northeastern Pennsylvania said. He then turned on a webcam and masturbated on camera, they charged.

Monroe County authorities traced the exchange to Ritter through a cell phone number he provided, and confirmed the match through photographs, according to a police affidavit. Charges were filed in November and the Pocono Record revealed Ritter’s involvement on Thursday.

Ritter, a 6-foot-4-inch, 230-pound ex-Marine, declined to comment to reporters gathered Thursday at his home near Albany, N.Y.

“I told you guys I’m not going to say anything, so please just go away,” he said after answering the door to the home, adorned with a welcome mat that reads “U.S. Marine Corps, The Ritters.”

Ritter, born William Scott Ritter Jr., served as a UN weapons inspector from 1991 to 1998 before resigning. He soon became a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s push toward war with Iraq.

In 2003, he acknowledged in TV news appearances that he had faced online child-sex charges in 2001 in New York, but said they were designed to silence his war criticism. The charges were dismissed.

In the Pennsylvania case, an undercover Barrett Township police officer said he described himself during the Feb. 7 online chat as a 15-year-old girl from the Poconos.

Ritter, using the screen name “delmarm4fun,” claimed to be a 44-year-old man from Albany, police said. He allegedly voiced concern about the supposed girl’s age and said he did not want to get in trouble, but then continued the graphic webcam recording.

Ritter waived a Dec. 17 preliminary hearing and is free on $25,000 bail. He is due in court Feb. 23 for a status hearing, and would face trial March 9 barring any requests for continuance.

Defense lawyer Todd Henry did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.

According to published interviews, Ritter has twin daughters who are about 16. He met his second wife, Marina, a translator, while assigned as a counterintelligence officer in the former Soviet Union. They moved to upstate New York about 10 years ago.

“I came to Delmar … to put roots down, to raise a family and live a normal middle-class American life,” Ritter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2002.

Associated Press writer Valerie Bauman in Delmar, N.Y., contributed to this report.