I am completely willing to believe that Ritter is being blackmailed. The only question is whether they are blackmailing him with this or with something much worse. Given that pedophiles are usually acting as part of a larger pattern, it is the high probability that something much worse is out there that makes me think that he could be subject to much stronger compulsion by a blackmailer.
In any case, this whole business makes him enough of a security risk that if he says the sky is blue, I'm going to go outside and check for myself.