Former weapons inspector A guilty in sex case

A former weapons inspector A complacency in an online sex sting was found guilty of six counts, including illegal contact with a minor person, to share explicit messages with a 15-year-old girl in a chat room and then perform a sexual act on itself.

Jurors in the County of Monroe, sentenced to 49 years Scott Ritter, Delmar, N.Y., Thursday on six of the seven counts. The former Navy Captain was acquitted on a charge of criminal attempt.

Ritter exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as a girl minor and masturbé even after the undercover officer stressed during the conversation that it was a minor, prosecutors said.

Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Michael Rakaczewski, "the jury reached the right decision," said after the verdict.

"They have seen the case for what it is and the respondent of what he is and what he has done."

"Even if a person can know what they do is wrong, whether they are sufficiently intelligent to try to avoid and with impunity [it]," said Rakaczewski. "Sometimes, the internal drive to engage in these types of deviant sexual behaviour is simply too hard".

Ritter, nor his attorney, Gary Kohlman, commented out of court.

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

Kohlman has recognized in its final argument that jurors were probably "disturbed and offended" by the cat graphics and video Ritter prosecutors played, but saying that they were obliged to put aside their personal aversion because "is not a referendum on whether someone in the courtroom approves adult chat rooms."

He said that the case dealt with the intention of the Ritter.

Ritter took the stand for his own defense Wednesday and said he believed that the person he met in a Yahoo chat room, on February 7, 2009, was an adult acting on his own fantasy.

Ritter was one of Chief Inspectors UN Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He resigned after accusing the United States and the United Nations of failing to crack down with Saddam Hussein. Later, he said that the Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction, and he became critical of voice of the American invasion.

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