Metro

Poconos sex sting leads to arrest of former chief UN weapons inspector

A former UN arms inspector was busted in a kiddie-sex-sting after contacting what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room that ended with him masturbating on a webcam, authorities said.

Scott Ritter, 46, who served as the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, is accused of contacting what turned out to be a Pennsylvania cop posing as a teenager.

According to the affidavit, the cop said he was a 15-year-old named “Emily” during an online chat room on Yahoo! when he was contacted by someone using the screen name “Delmarm4fun.”

Ritter told “Emily” he was a 44-year-old male from Albany.

“Emily” told Ritter she was from the Poconos, at which point Ritter asked for a picture other than the one “she” had posted on her account.

Police said that’s when Ritter then sent her a link to his Web camera and began to masturbate.

“Emily” asked Ritter for his cell phone number, which he gave her during the February 2009 conversation.

Ritter again asked “Emily” how old she was. Told “she” was 15, Ritter said he didn’t realize she was a minor and abruptly turned off his cam, saying he didn’t want to get in trouble.

Ritter then told “Emily” he had been fantasizing about having sex with her, to which she replied: “Guess you turned it off.”

That’s when Ritter replied, “You want to see it finish” — turning his webcam back on until he ejaculated, police said.

The probe lasted until the fall when Ritter was arrested last Nov. 9 and 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, authorities said.

Ritter, who is awaiting trial, waived his right last month to a preliminary hearing and is currently free on $25,000 bail. His arrest was first reported by the Pocono Record.

Ritter was charged in a June 2001 Internet sex sting in the Albany suburb of Colonie, near his Delmar home, after arranging a sexual rendezvous at a Burger King with someone he met and communicated with online — someone he was led to believe was a 16-year-old girl.

Police said Ritter, a staunch critic of the US’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, had planned to have the girl watch while he masturbated.

The “teen” was actually an undercover vice cop.

The case was kept under wraps so well at the time that even Albany County DA Paul Clyne didn’t hear about it until 2003.

The case was later dismissed.

Clyne was so “shocked and angered” that he hadn’t been told about the case, he canned Cynthia Preiser, the assistant DA who had handled it.

The bust came just two months after Ritter was nabbed in a similar undercover operation involving a 14-year-old girl, but was later released without being charged.

Ritter has claimed that details of his sordid sex-sting arrest were intentionally leaked to sabotage his planned peace mission to Iraq.

Ritter said the publicity had caused him to cancel his trip to Baghdad, where he planned to consult officials in the regime of then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on ways to avoid precipitating war with the US.

Ritter, a Florida native and an author, took part in 52 UN inspections, 14 of them as chief. In 1995, his team discovered missile guidance equipment that Iraq had bought from Russia through a Palestinian agent.

He led the UN weapons inspection team into Iraq in January 1998, only to be blocked from the sites by Iraqi officials. Accusing him of being a spy, Iraq then refused Ritter and his team an escort to the inspection sites, thereby preventing them from doing their job.