Outcome of Ritter Sting Case Unusual

WXXA - Fox23News.com ^ | January 24, 2003

[HAL9000]

Police say they caught him trying to meet young girls over the internet...but former U.N. Weapons inspector Scott Ritter never spent a day in jail.

Legal experts say that's unusual...most others accused of similar crimes meet a much different fate.  

Jeffrey Johnson serving 7 years in prison...nabbed by police in 1997 for trying to hook up with a 12-year old girl he met on the Internet.

Robert Rodriguez facing up to 15 years behind bars...for a similar crime involving a 14 year old.

Former U.N. Weapons inspector Scott Ritter caught in 2001 for allegedly trying to meet a 16 year old girl he chatted with online.

But Ritter's a free man...his case adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.... {"The judge, the ADAA, my lawyer, reached an ACOD and my file was sealed. I am obligated legally and ethically not to discuss matters pertaining to that."}

{"I've never heard of an ACOD in a situation like this."} Former federal prosecutor Donald kinchella says the outcome of Ritter's case is not the norm...especially since Ritter was also nabbed 3 months before the arrest and got off with just a warning.

{"People who do this just don't do it once. There's something there. No police officer or anyone else wants to see someone like this out on the streets where they can have contact with children."}

Ritter was allegedly supposed to meet the teenage girl at this Menands Burger King...but was met by cops instead...a common tactic in internet sex stings...

{"If someone communicated with someone they think is a kid and had conversations about sex and then they show up where they set the meeting up, I can't imagine what the innocent explanation would be."}

With Ritter's case-- and his lips -- sealed...we may never hear his explanation.

The sentences for crimes like these can differ greatly...depending on the specifics and whether the case is being prosecuted by the state or the federal government.

The feds generally dole out harsher penalties. They were never involved in Scott Ritter's case.

[woofie]

Ok, who is going to explain all this?

[SunStar]

"We'll let you go if you toe the pro-Iraq line..." [/Tinfoil]

[DoughtyOne]

Hell I'm still trying to figure out how the Unibomber got a free pass. He should have fried.

[lainie]

What do all the parenthetical passages mean? {} {}

[lainie]

Oh they're the Baghdaddy's quotes.

[Shermy]

Chummy conduct between the lawyers, methinks. Got one of them fired for it.

[dighton]

Ok, who is going to explain all this?

Easy. The fix was in, and damned if I know who was responsible.

;-)

[chnsmok]

That is so cool.

[cyncooper]

Former federal prosecutor Donald kinchella says the outcome of Ritter's case is not the norm...especially since Ritter was also nabbed 3 months before the arrest and got off with just a warning.

{"People who do this just don't do it once. There's something there. No police officer or anyone else wants to see someone like this out on the streets where they can have contact with children."}

Glad to see the follow-up here. I've been following the Ritter situation and while it seemed as though he received special treatment, it hadn't been explictly stated, that I know of--until now.

Why did the ADA, Cynthia Preiser, work out such a deal for Ritter. Why was it kept from the DA. We know the DA fired Ms.Preiser once he found out.

[chnsmok]

Wait! That is very cool. Does Poindexter know about this? LOL

[Walkingfeather]

You know what is also bad about this??? Those who have been convicted of the same crime can ask for their cases to be overturned citing equal protection under the law. So it is a double screw on that community.

[TLBSHOW]

Baghdad pressuring Ritter?
Wolfowitz says Baghdad has history of blackmailing weapons inspectorsRitter

– who confirmed yesterday that he was arrested in June 2001 but refused to give details – has dramatically reversed his position on Iraq's weapons threat and become an outspoken critic of the U.S., telling WND last week that President Bush should be impeached for his policy toward Baghdad.

"In the past, Iraq did not hesitate to use pressure tactics to obtain information about the inspectors," Wolfowitz said today in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Noting that often the pressure was "quite crude," Wolfowitz said that during the previous inspection period in the 1990s, "one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed."

[Nick Danger]

I wondered about this, because I thought it was really weird that Ritter would get a slap on the wrist after having been caught doing the same thing only 90 days previously. I wondered about the first warning, but a second seemed to be bizarre. Not to get too inflammatory here, but stuff like this is how little girls end up in ditches.

It might have been just "country club courtesy" operating among movers-and-shakers in the local establishment, but the suspicion remains -- especially since the Assistant DA rather quietly disposed of the case without telling her boss -- that some Shadowy Force came by and put in a "fix."

Who could do something like that? Who could talk a career prosecutor into quietly disposing of a case involving a creepy guy who likes little girls... not once, but twice in three months? I think it had to have been spooks... our spooks. I'll bet this was one of those "national security matters" and the Assistant DA got rolled into dropping this by somebody with a big Federal badge. They didn't want Scott Ritter in jail, and they didn't want him taken off the world stage. They were learning something by watching him.

[chnsmok]

But didn't Scotty come home anti-Iraq? When exactly did he change?

[The Great Satan]

They didn't want Scott Ritter in jail, and they didn't want him taken off the world stage.

In other words, they didn't want the little sting messing up the Big Sting. Possible.

[Wingsofgold]

Uh, 16? Jitters Ritter musta been havin a bad night. 16's a lil, uh, "long in the tooth" for him.

[rolling_stone]

The unabomber got a free pass because his brother tipped the Feds..without his help many more innocent people might have been killed..if they didn't give him something next time around someone else might not do the same thing...anyway Ted seemed by most counts to be not all there a likely paranoid schizophrenic...

[isthisnickcool]

Ritter was arrested in a town (Colonie, NY) of approx. 8000.

According to the Colonie PD web site they were granted a DOJ grant in 2000 to start their computer crime unit. Which handled 15 on-line investigations in 2000 and 22 on-line investigations in 2001. Their web site says in more than one place that they would be aggressive with cases involving children and Internet crimes and have "been proactively investigating these kinds of crimes since 1997 and have arrested numerous individuals for trafficing in child pornography and traveling to meet children that they engaged over the Internet".

So, Ritter was arrested in 2001 by a police dept. that professes it's aggressive stance on EXACTLY the type of crime that they arrest Ritter for. Check out their 2001 annual report from the link here. It has the line in it I have in bold print above.

There own web site says they would aggressively persue the type of case they caught Ritter on. Their web site indicates that they intended to be experts in the area of crime Ritter was arrested for! So? Were they are weren't they experts? If they were experts then HOW IN THE HELL did Ritter get off the way he did. If they were not really qualified to do these cases then is that the reaqson why Ritter was able to make the deal? The little police dept. was way over it's head?

I'm not bashing the PD here. I'm positive that they are working their butts off. My choice is that they just caught a real big fish and they just did not have what it took to reel him in. But if that's not the case something is very wrong here Lucy....

[Southack]

You would be correct except for one thing, OUR spooks would have gone to the boss, in this case the DA.

On the other hand, foreign spooks would go to the lowest possible level that they could get away with (that would be able to "dispose" of the case), in this case the ADA.

And once a favor like that is called in, not only does the foreign controller "own" his mark, but he's got ready blackmail material with the ability (or more accurately, just the threat) to "get the mark's probation revoked".

Our guys go to the boss. Their guys try to keep it to the lowest possible level. SOP