Former United Nations weapon inspector and Delmar resident Scott Ritter has been charged with a number of crimes after allegedly showing himself masturbating on a Web camera to what he thought was a 15-year-old girl, but in actuality was a police officer.
An affidavit from an officer in the Barrett Township Police Department in Pennsylvania describes the alleged February 2009 incident in explicit detail. In a chat room on Yahoo instant messenger, Ritter allegedly used the screen name delmar4fun to communicate with the police officer, who purported himself to be a minor female named `Emily` from the Poconos. Ritter provided the officer with a link to his Web camera, which showed him masturbating, according to police.
Police said they compared the images to other pictures of Ritter, and found them to be the same person.
He provided police with a cell phone number during the conversation, which police allegedly traced to Ritter through a court order.
The affidavit says that during the conversation Ritter asked the girl’s age and then turned off his camera, saying that he didn’t realize she was 15. He then allegedly reactivated the camera, saying, `you want to see it finish?`
According to the Barrett Township Police Department, Ritter turned himself in to police on an arrest warrant Nov. 9. He was charged with unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation.
Ritter also had a run-in with police in 2001 as the result of an Internet sex sting operation, but that case was dismissed. The former weapons inspector, who was an outspoken critic of U.S. Middle East policies, at the time said the arrest was an attempt to discredit his name. He served as a weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.
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