Man guilty in online sex sting

STROUDSBURG, Pa. - A former United Nations weapons inspector nabbed in an online sex sting was convicted Thursday on six counts, including unlawful contact with a minor, for exchanging explicit messages in a chat room with someone he believed was a 15-year-old girl and then performing a sex act on himself.

Jurors in Monroe County convicted Scott Ritter, 49, of Delmar, N.Y., on six of seven counts. He was acquitted on a criminal-attempt charge.

Ritter exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as an underage girl and masturbated even after the detective stressed during the chat that he was a minor, prosecutors said.

"The jury reached the right decision," Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Michael Rakaczewski said after the verdict. "They saw the case for what it is and the defendant for what he is and what he did."

Neither Ritter nor his attorney, Gary Kohlman, commented outside court.

Sentencing is set for next month. Each of the five felony counts carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, but Ritter is likely to get much less under sentencing guidelines.

In his closing argument, Kohlman acknowledged that jurors were likely "troubled and offended" by the graphic chat and video of Ritter that prosecutors played. But Kohlman said they were required to put aside their personal distaste because "this is not a referendum on whether anybody in the courtroom approves of adult chat rooms." He said the case turned on Ritter's intent.

Ritter testified in his own defense Wednesday and said he believed the person he met in a Yahoo chat room on Feb. 7, 2009, was an adult acting out her own fantasy.

Ritter was one of the United Nations' chief weapons inspectors in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He resigned after accusing the United States and the United Nations of failing to get tough with Saddam Hussein.