| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| bold-faced |
| PRONUNCIATION: | b ld f st |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Impudent; brazen: a bold-faced lie. 2. Printed in thick, heavy type. |
Posted on 01/25/2003 3:07:17 PM PST by kattracks
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Federal authorities have obtained the sealed records in the alleged Internet sex sting of former U.N. chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter to review for possible federal charges.
State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Teresi signed an order Thursday requiring police and Albany County prosecutors to provide records and any evidence to the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office.
Federal authorities filed a motion earlier in the week to obtain the records to determine whether federal laws were violated, the Daily Gazette of Schenectady and the Times Union of Albany reported in Saturday editions.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak refused to comment to the newspapers. A message to his office by The Associated Press was not immediately returned Saturday.
Ritter, 41, a critic of the Bush administration's push toward war with Iraq, acknowledged his June 2001 arrest this week in national television appearances but said he was prohibited from discussing details because the charges had been dismissed and the records sealed.
Ritter has suggested recent news reports about the arrest were an attempt to silence him. He said the publicity has forced him to cancel a recent trip to Baghdad, where he said he would have offered an alternative to military action.
Broadcast reports when he was arrested and recent newspaper reports have indicated Ritter was caught in an Internet sex sting, something he did not admit.
At the time of the arrest, NBC station WNYT-TV of Albany reported that William Scott Ritter Jr. -- Ritter's full name -- was charged with trying to lure an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl to a restaurant.
WNYT broadcast Ritter's mug shot but did not make the connection to his role as the chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq during most of the 1990s.
He was charged with attempted endangerment of a child, a misdemeanor that carries up to 90 days in jail, reports said. The case was adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, meaning that if he stayed out of trouble for six months, the charges would disappear and the file would be sealed.
Notice how the press only mentions he was a Marine when they describe him.
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| bold-faced |
| PRONUNCIATION: | bldfst |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Impudent; brazen: a bold-faced lie. 2. Printed in thick, heavy type. |
Over the last week, former prosecutors have questioned the way the Ritter case was handled. Albany County's Clyne, while not discussing the Ritter case, said he would not approve of charges involving the luring of a teenager girl over the Internet to a sexual encounter to be disposed of as a low-level dismissal. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Kinsella, who retired last year as head of the Albany office's Criminal Division and is now an attorney in private practice, feels Ritter may have gotten off easy.
"He was allegedly involved in what otherwise would be felony conduct, and it was charged as a Class B misdemeanor and disposed of and there's no apparent good reason for it, given the seriousness of the alleged conduct," Kinsella said.
See #33
Yep. The records were sealed in return for a guilty plea to a "much lesser charge"
Feds reviewing Ritter's records
U.S. attorney's office looking into charges
in connection with Internet sex-sting arrest
Posted: January 25, 2003
5:35 p.m. Eastern
World Net Daily
Is this the first sighting of the judge involved? At any rate, in case you missed it, (I did), there it is.
He got one hell of a special break and the media is largely silent on this as well. Explains why the assistant DA was fired.
FYI, per loin first posted hearing about this on FOX around 3:20 this afternoon here:
IIRC, he had only just moved to Delmar from Florida at the time...and he wasn't on TV every night...it's doubtful anyone knew who he was, though I have a sneaking suspicion that he played the full "important former UN spector" orchastra for the assistant DA. And probably the judge: appealing to their wish NOT to compromise such an august body as the UN, especially what with all the ongoing problems with Saddam. The UN is SOOOOO important to world peace.
This is only a suspicion, because it's the logical course of defensive offense for a perp in his position who was caught with the goods in hand, as it were.
Yep: Wolfowitz's comments to the UN Council on Foreign Relations (ironic, no?)
"Intimidation and Coercion: In the past, Iraq did not hesitate to use pressure tactics to obtain information about the inspectors. Often the pressure was quite crude. During the UNSCOM period, one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed."
But, wait! Thanks to FR I didn't miss it!
So very true!
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| bald-faced |
| PRONUNCIATION: | bôldfst |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Brash; undisguised: a bald-faced lie. 2. Zoology Having a white face or face markings. |
It's about time the AP started telling at least a BIT of the truth and stopped blaming Scuddie's self inflicted problems on the VRWC.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.