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.

[PhilDragoo]

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

Now the release of the two incidents (14, 16) is made just prior to the 800-cruise-missiles-count-em-800.

And just prior to the State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

Cut off at the knees (or crotch, whatever), the Big Mouth Ritter (8 Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter hah) doesn't cast such a big shadow.

And he got his Baghdad visit cancelled, too.

Hey, Scott, young love sucks, huh.

[_Jim]

This doesn't wash, Nick.

The DA (the ADA's boss) could have been informed *without harm*, I suspect, in fact, it WOULD have to have been his decision -

- AND, if the ADA alone had made this decision via a request from the FEDS (as you propose) I suspect she (the ADA) would *still* be employed today (with perhaps a 'letter of reprimand' in her file however).

Overall, this still doesn't wash ...

[Jeff Chandler]

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 smell a rat- a big fat rat with a bulbous red nose.

[mass55th]

It would be interesting to know what happened to the rest of the folks busted in the same sting operations as Ritter.

[mass55th]

"Ok, who is going to explain all this?"

It's simple...Scotty swallows.

[Jeff Chandler]

[M. Peach]

"They were learning something by watching him. "

I'm listening - what do you think they could learn? I think he's been blackmailed and rewarded. His abrupt switch defies logic. Is it possible that the U.S. Governement could possibly using him to highlight the absurdity of Iraq's position? Sort of like reverse psychology?

[HAL9000]

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

This report was the script from a TV news cast. The quotations in braces were comments from people who were interviewed on-camera for the report.

[Nick Danger]

except for one thing, OUR spooks would have gone to the boss

Maybe, but I have trouble with that. I did some research on that ADA, looking for possible connections to the Clintons or the Democratic Party, or lesbian activism, or any of that. I found nothing but a long-time prosecutor who seemed to be professional and diligent.

Call me naive, but I don't think most people in small-town America are that easily corrupted. I could see her getting a talk from a spooky Fed, and agreeing to squelch the case for "national security," but if Boris Batenov and Natasha show up with a suitcase full of cash, she's as likely to freak as go along.

I wonder if we'll ever find out. There are probably spooks on both sides of that guy, his wife could be a KGB spy; there's plenty of mystery to go around.

[AmishDude]

Interesting speculation. I wouldn't even dare to speculate on the strange case of William Scott Ritter, except to say that it is abundantly clear that he had been blackmailed to change his Iraq position. Most of us have thought so and now he kindly provides us with an explanation of the subject of the blackmail.

[kayak]

fyi

[lainie]

gotcha. Thanks.

[Enough is ENOUGH]

I am sick of politicians and their cronies being placed above the law. When the hell is this going to stop? I am outraged that this creep gets to walk free when he should be serving time like other perps of this most despicable and perverted crime.

Scott Ritter-pedophile. His name should always be hyphenated with the word "pedophile". What's just as sick are the idiots who stand up for him. They are in fact defending pedophilia :

Main Entry: pe·do·phil·ia
Pronunciation: "pE-d&-'fi-lE-&
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin
Date: 1906
: sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object!
- pe·do·phil·i·ac /-'fi-lE-"ak/ or pe·do·phil·ic /-'fi-lik/ adjective

[holyscroller]

You may be right. Either that or Scott came up with some awfully big bug bucks to cut the deal with the assistant DA.

[Nick Danger]

Either that or Scott came up with some awfully big bug bucks to cut the deal with the assistant DA.

All these alternate theories require the DA to be a crook, or a foreign agent, or Hillary's robot-drone. That adds a layer of improbability that Occam suggests we cut away. The simplest answer is that she's a straight-arrow who was told to ditch this by someone she considered to be legitimate authority, and higher than her boss. There's a judge in the middle of this as well -- he had to go along with sealing this, and he would have been familiar with all the similar cases in the area, and would have known how unusual it was. That also points to "legitimate authority," unless we want to posit that the judge also happened to be a crook/foreign agent/Hillary robot. I think somebody with a Big Badge did this.

[pepsionice]

My honest guess is that Ritter actually paid off the ADA Preiser. Being a small town...he probably forked over $20k for her political ambitions. Being a small town and small time poltical dreamer...$20k would likely be the proper amount. If you check around your local town at the number of deals worked out...especially with big names...there is cash always involved.

[SkyPilot]

My honest guess is that Ritter actually paid off the ADA Preiser. Being a small town...he probably forked over $20k

I have to suspect the same thing. My brother-in-law is a cop---and he talks about corruption all the time---who is on the take and who is not. Are there dishonest police officers? Sure. Lawyers? Yup. Judges and DA? YOU BETCHA!

Cops--especially those with kids of their own---eat trash perverts like Ritter for breakfast---but they walk because of dishonest prosecuters, judges, and lawyers. A few years ago in Upstate NY--a prominent State Senator was caught trying to take the Spider Man underwear off little boy in a motel room---and he got a "warning." What the hell is that?!

[Southack]

So the ADA takes the fall, loses her job and her entire reputation as a diligent long-term prosecutor, rather than privately say to her boss (once the scandal hits) "please call the CIA and discuss this case before you summarily trash me in public and cost me my career"?

Because that's how she'd have to behave to get to this point. She took the fall rather than point the finger at someone else (e.g. our government).

So who's she so afraid of? Our guys who got her fired? No way. A long-term U.S. prosecutor, especially a female, is in no way, shape, or form going to "fear" our guys enough to lose her career with nary a word.

And our guys don't go to bat for her and either convince her boss to keep her on or at least set her up in a nice cushy federal job?

No way.

The "our guys did it to her" argument loses in two completely different ways: 1., it loses because she's quiet after getting burned, and 2., it loses because she didn't get set up in a cushy federal job for playing ball with the big boys.

But the scenario that fits the available evidence is that she got burned by the bad guys, and they aren't sticking around to give her some nice cushy private sector job in the city of her choice.

And that's not to even say that she realizes that the people who "talked" to her were indeed bad guys. It could have been a sob story from one "professional" prosecutor to another (as role-playing/acting is a popular strategy for spooks).

Whatever made her make that decision, it was powerful enough that she isn't talking about it.

Get that ADA to talk and you've got yourself a link to a foreign cell here in the U.S., even if it is nothing more than a criminal police-sketch of what one of them looks like.

[DoughtyOne]

I like your planetary sciences approach to this. We can't see the heavenly body yet, but we can document the effect it's gravity is having on the planet we can see. There is some hidden object, or force if you will, affecting the dynamics of this case, and Ritter's ride through life. I wonder how long it will be before we know "the rest of the story."

[DoughtyOne]

I would submit two things. If Kazinski's brother went to the feds to make a deal, wouldn't it have been likely that they didn't need him to figure the rest out? Also, if he had information on a guy like his brother and didn't reveal it, wouldn't the next vile act have been with his, in effect, blessing? This would have made him an accessory.

Now as for Kazinski being mentally deficient, that's a pretty tough claim in that he successfully managed his life in such a way as to avoid apprehension.

If McVeigh should have been executed for bombing people, then Ted Kazinski should have been executed for bombing people. But for the grace of God and a failed bomb attempt, and airliner failed to be blown out of the sky. That certainly puts Kazinski in the same class as McVeigh in my opinion.

Thanks for the comments, but still find my self in disagreement with them, although I do understand the basis for your conclusions.