Scott Ritter’s bad day
Adirondack Patriot sends a link from the Albany Times Union in regards to the bad day that former weapons inspector Scott Ritter had in court today.
Ritter asked Wednesday for a new trial, basing his request on an appeals court ruling in New York that records from two previous incidents in Colonie in 2001 should not have been unsealed and given to prosecutors in Pennsylvania to be used at his trial.
Defense attorney Gary Kohlman argued the New York ruling entitled Ritter to a new trial because prosecutors based much of their strategy on the argument that Ritter had a history of illicit online sex.
“It became, as I feared, the tail that was wagging the dog at trial,” Kohlman said in court
So that’s three times that Ritter has been convicted of soliciting sex from detectives he thought were teenage girls. You’d think he’d learn, right?
Paula Brust, a member of the Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, testified for the prosecution that based on Ritter’s history, he is at risk to offend again.
“He is not able to manage his offending in the community despite sex offender treatment,” she said.
Of course, Ritter told the jury that he knew they were detectives and he followed through because he was depressed because Darth Cheney headed efforts to disparage him when he tirned against the Iraq War, and hoped to be arrested. He should be ecstatic that he’s been convicted, then, huh? Of course his convictions in New York were two years before the Iraq War.
Category: Shitbags
This is a thought crime conviction and I really don’t like it. Heck, convict him for meeting “people who claimed online to be underage girls” with the intent to have sex with them.
Don’t convict him for exchanging illicit emails with someone who claims he thought was simply pretending to be 15.
Too cool. The PA court said, in effect, “Screw you and New York, Ritter!” It seems that the seal could be broken only for investigative purposes under the NY law and once PA got hold of the old cases, they were used as evidence against Ritter, the slime who likes to choke chicken to what he thinks are young girls online. Ritter didn’t like that. Ritter lost–again. Good job AP. Thanks.
Use the links, SgtKane. You thinks it’s okay to spank monkey on a webcam that you think is connected to a 15 year old girl? That and 5 other counts. My guess is you didn’t know that. This wasn’t a thought crime. This was a sex crime.
I remember when Ritter was claiming that he was being framed by the Bush Administration. Lo and behold, Bush has since retired and Scottie’s still a skeezy child molester. Who knew?
I’m not sure how, but Ashcroft must be involved.
I did follow the links, he spanked the monkey in front of someone he thought was pretending to be a 15 year old girl. As it turns out he was correct, there wasn’t a 15 year old girl on the other end of the web cam. There was an adult pretending.
Thats where my problem is. What proof is there that he thought the person really was 15? He claims he knew he/she wasn’t.
That is where the thought crime happens. Or rather what I like to think is a thought crime. In this case, he didn’t break any laws (ie he didn’t physically show up to meet with the 15 year old and spank the monkey in front of her). He just hooked up with some random dude online, spanked the monkey and ended up in jail.
It bothers me that he was arrested for attempting to do so, but not convicted prior to this event, but those arrests were used against him. If he wasn’t convicted I don’t see how it could be considered a prior bad act.
That said, if the police or the DA had done their jobs right in the first place, he should have been convicted on those accounts. Just not on the one they nailed him for.
Ritter has been sentenced from 1.5 to 5.5 years in prison.
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111026/NEWS/111029802
Guess he won’t be joining up with his pals at OWS, and there will be one less pervert in the park.
SGT Kane: He said he thought the person wasn’t 15. The jury just didn’t buy it. Especially in light of his previous misbehavior. It was a really, really weak defense.
His defense was self-serving and paper-thin, just like those guys in prison were “just holding a bag” for someone they just met at a party not knowing it contained drugs.
Well, peeping tomism must be okay b/c the object is unaware that someone is peeping and, after all, no one has done anything except look. And soliciting for prostitution must be okay too b/c no one has done anything except talk. Are those fair statements?
The proof you seek we are not privy to, SGT Kane. But you can bet your last dollar that the sting included statements (writings) by the police officer that she was a 15 year old girl or that she was almost 16 or that she wasn’t yet 18. As for the prior bad acts, I’m guessing that that was used to discredit his testimony, rendering his testimony unworthy of belief in the eyes of the jury.
Matt’s Rule for Online Personae:
1. Men are men
2. Women are men
3. Kids are Cops
As for Ritter’s counsel: I understand the what and why, but feel they lack the moral compass to understand they are seeking to release a known predator out into a target-rich environment.
Ritter’s next stage is to seek out prey without the internet, and then permanently silence his next victim(s) so he can’t be returned to prison.
The first one isn’t. The second one could be a fair statement. It would depend at what point the bust happened. If you busted me in my car for driving down the road because you thought I was going to solicit a prostitute, then thats wrong. If you bust me for handing an undercover cop a $50 saying “this otta cover a blow job right?” then I’ve broken the law. The physical activity is the crime, not the thought of doing so. Peeping Tom is against the law, because it doesn’t involve consent or someone capable of giving consent. An adult pretending to be a 15 year old girl on the other end of a webcam is capable of giving consent. Let’s remove the sex from this though, mainly because it squicks me out. Hypothetically, let’s say I come home from Iraq on leave, and the police in CA bust me for the importation of high capacity magazines (any magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds is illegal to bring into the state). The court dismisses the case, and its sealed so no one knows why the case was dismissed. A year later, after I’m home safe and sound I go to the big gun show in Reno, and as I cross the border back into CA, I’m again arrested for the importation of high capacity magazines. Once again, the case is dismissed and the records sealed. A month later I make arrangements with a group of airsoft re-enactors to sell them 200 round drum magazines for their rifles and I end up convicted because I’m a freaked out vet with PTSD who “thought” these guys wanted real magazines for “real steel” weapons who had been arrested twice before for the importation of high cap’s into the state. It’s not a perfect comparison (because as screwed up as CA gun laws are they haven’t gotten into intent laws yet), but it’s the same line of thinking. Now if the “re-enactors” had shown up and I had attempted to hand them real high cap magazines, by all means bust and… Read more »
Because he took the stand. He testified. I don’t have a transcript but informed speculation I do have. Once he was on the stand, his character and reputation became issues for the prosecutor. Veracity counts. Towards that end, the DA probably asked him about the prior arrests for similar acts which he either denied or sketchily recalled. Bingo. Out comes the specific information regarding the other incidents. It’s not as if the DA said, “We think you ought to convict because he has twice previously done similar things.” That, I can say with out fear of rational contradiction, did not happen.
Okay, it’s clear to me that your objection is with the law that criminalizes an attempt to engage in sexual activity with a minor when that minor is actually an adult posing as a minor. You are not endorsing sex with children. I get it. I suppose we could go round and round on this with hypos and real-world examples but the bottom line is—it’s the PA law. It’s statute, passed by the legislature, signed by the gov, and it’s the law. I believe most Pennsylvanians support such laws but I’m just guessing on that too.
Well, the article has changed, been updated with the sentencing and the paragraphs that talked about the sealed records is gone, but I had a different impression of events than you AirCav, mainly because I don’t see how the prosecution could have asked about those events to introduce them in the first place. An arrest is NOT proof of a prior bad act.
And for the record, I have no doubt this guy is a slime ball, but that isn’t against the law. Which is my point, he wasn’t convicted of a crime but he was convicted because people thought he was a slime ball. Because of what they thought, he thought.
Maybe a better analogy would be, I get arrested and convicted for attempted manslaughter because I tend to speed and threatened to run down the man who sexually assaulted my daughter.
Yes, that is it exactly. I have a huge issue with any law that criminalizes a thought rather than a behavior.
Well, that ain’t so good because manslaughter itself does not permit planning. A planned killing can be knocked down to manslaughter but that attempted manslaughter business is no good. But I think I see where you are on this. Isn’t conspiracy to commit a thought crime then? By the way, Ritter wasn’t alone when he did the crime. It’s not like he jotted a note to himself, “I’d like to have sex with a minor female,” and then was arrested. He got online, went where he went, said whatever he said, wrote whatever he wrote, and started palying with himself on a webcam. That’s not exactly a thought crime, now, is it?
Actually, the prosecutor in the case at hand didn’t have to get anything “unsealed”, and I’m not sure that an adult that doesn’t go through some kind of probation can get a record “sealed”.
When someone is arrested, the detective or officer doing the work-up for court will get a complete criminal history, from the NCIC. That lists the offense, criminal code #, jurisdiction and disposition. That will list all the arrests and dispositions, if known. At one time, the disposition info was terrible, these days the info is mostly up to date.
As AirCav said, this was more than likely done to impeach Ritter’s testimony that he was a good guy who was conducting his own internet sting to catch predators, or that he didn’t know he’d left his web cam on, or whatever.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but formulation of intent might have a bit to do with it. For instance, if I solicit someone to kill my ex, giving money to an undercover cop to carry out the deed, I can’t use, “well I knew he was a cop I just wanted try and trap a real hitman” excuse.
Same with trolling for underage girls. There’s a difference between consenting adults pretending to be underage (sick, but legal) and trying to seek out underage kids for sexual relations (sick AND illegal.)
I live in PA and its a damned good law. I totally see your objection SGT Kane from the stand point of, this could be applied elsewhere, and how you don’t want a minority report situation. However, this is a serious, serious crime and like murder is not something you can ever undue. We can convict criminals for conspiracy to commit murder, so why not convict someone for attempting a sex offense?