APP - Former U.S. Marine and U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter

Some may have heard of Scott Ritter in the past. He was a former U.S. Marine Intelligence Officer, a former U.N. Weapons Inspector and is currently a journalist who is quite knowledgeable on certain global conflicts, in particular the war in Ukraine. Some, however, choose to focus solely on the fact that he was the subject of 2 law enforcement sting operations. Wikipedia sums it up:

**
Arrests and conviction for sex offenses

Ritter was the subject of two law enforcement sting operations in 2001.[39] He was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl.[40][41] He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child". The charge was dismissed and the record was sealed after he completed six months of pre-trial probation.[41][8]

Ritter was arrested again in November 2009[42] over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer repeatedly identified himself as a 15-year-old girl.[5]

The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included "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".[2] Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a courtroom in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2011.[5][43]

In October 2011, he received a sentence of one and a half to five and a half years in prison.[3] He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.[4][7][8]

**

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter#Arrests_and_conviction_for_sex_offenses

Now if that's all he had ever done, that'd be one thing, but as mentioned already, he was also a well regarded U.S. Marine Intelligence Officer, U.N. Weapons Inspector, and now, a very respected journalist, at least by people I personally respect, and also has his own substack page where he posts many articles on subjects like the Ukraine war that I think are quite good. Today, he posted an article I've made a thread out of, here, where he writes about an interview he had with a Russian Colonel in regards to the Ukraine war and the West's relationship with Russia:
A View from the Frontlines | justplainpolitics.com

Anyway, I decided to make this thread to try to have a respectful debate with people who have generally been respectful with me, and also as a sort of bookmark to direct anyone who brings up this old canard.

Is there a point to this?

From the conclusion of the opening post:
**
Anyway, I decided to make this thread to try to have a respectful debate with people who have generally been respectful with me, and also as a sort of bookmark to direct anyone who brings up this old canard.
**

Perhaps that wasn't as clear as I'd have liked it to be. Basically, people were insulting Scott Ritter whenever I or Hawkeye would post something that he was part of- articles, youtube videos, that sort of thing. I decided it'd be best to at least try to have a -respectful- debate on Ritter and this forum seemed like the best way to do that.
 
This is the APP section. He can post whatever he likes within the rules and participants have to abide by APP rules.

FWIW, I fell into the same pothole.

Rules for the Above Plain Politics Forum
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This subforum has been created to encourage a higher level of conversation and debate. This subforum inherits all site wide rules, and has some additional caveats:

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You actually did fairly well. Even had a bit of an alrgith discussion with you on a former brother in law of mine.
 
He was entrapped twice. No minors were involved either time. There are also aspects of his case, such as the unsealing of the initial case by party(ies) unknown, that suggest that powerful people wanted to smear his name.
It's not entrapment and it's a matter of intent, not action. Scott Ritter is a pedo.
 

Indeed. I made a thread about this in another forum, can be seen here:
 
He was entrapped twice. No minors were involved either time. There are also aspects of his case, such as the unsealing of the initial case by party(ies) unknown, that suggest that powerful people wanted to smear his name.
It's not entrapment

It was the very definition of entrapment:
**
  • noun law Action by law enforcement personnel to lead an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime, in order to arrest and prosecute that person for the crime.
**

Source:
 
I hope Pedo Ritter goes away for a very long time.

He wasn't jailed, or even charged with a crime. There's plenty of evidence that the raid and subsequent SWATing of his house were done solely to intimidate him. I get into details in the following thread:
 
It was the very definition of entrapment:
**
  • noun law Action by law enforcement personnel to lead an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime, in order to arrest and prosecute that person for the crime.
**

Source:
Disagreed since Ritter wasn't innocent. He was seeking to have sex with a minor. Scott Ritter is a pedophile and he deserves to go to prison for it.
 
He wasn't jailed, or even charged with a crime. There's plenty of evidence that the raid and subsequent SWATing of his house were done solely to intimidate him. I get into details in the following thread:
The reason for the raid is because he's a traitor and a pedo.
 
It was the very definition of entrapment:
**
  • noun law Action by law enforcement personnel to lead an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime, in order to arrest and prosecute that person for the crime.
**

Source:
Disagreed since Ritter wasn't innocent. He was seeking to have sex with a minor.

Again, I've seen no evidence that Ritter was "seeking to have sex with a minor". I have seen evidence that he was seeking to do things of an exhibitionist nature with adult females, which he was apparently trying to do on an almost daily basis at the time. It's all there in Wikipedia's entry on him for those who look carefully:
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In the early 2000s, Ritter and his wife Marina joined Delmar’s volunteer Fire Department. Ritter became one of its most active members, and was eventually selected as an assistant chief. According to court testimony, by 2004 when Ritter stopped attending therapy, he had made an almost daily habit of trying to meet women from chat rooms, in cars or out-of-the-way places, so they could watch him masturbate. Ritter has blamed this behavior on his ongoing depression.
**

Source:

Naturally, the mainstream media being what it is, we don't hear about this, but instead only hear about the 2 times that undercover officers lured him into agreeing to meet or expose himself to them.

Wikipedia itself distorts the truth too. Immediately after the above text, they state the following:
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In 2009, when Ritter's sexual offenses with a minor became public, he lost the only regular job he had had in recent years, writing analyses on world events for a private energy firm, and was reported to be heavily in debt.
**

I have found absolutely no evidence that Ritter engaged in "sexual offenses with a minor". What we have hear is a classic case of sloppy reporting. Mr. Ritter was only ever charged with either agreeing to meet with or exposing himself to undercover officers who were -pretending- to be minors.
 
He wasn't jailed, or even charged with a crime. There's plenty of evidence that the raid and subsequent SWATing of his house were done solely to intimidate him. I get into details in the following thread:
The reason for the raid is because he's a traitor and a pedo.

You've shown no evidence for either of your assertions.
 
Again, I've seen no evidence that Ritter was "seeking to have sex with a minor". I have seen evidence that he was seeking to do things of an exhibitionist nature with adult females, which he was apparently trying to do on an almost daily basis at the time. It's all there in Wikipedia's entry on him for those who look carefully:
**
In the early 2000s, Ritter and his wife Marina joined Delmar’s volunteer Fire Department. Ritter became one of its most active members, and was eventually selected as an assistant chief. According to court testimony, by 2004 when Ritter stopped attending therapy, he had made an almost daily habit of trying to meet women from chat rooms, in cars or out-of-the-way places, so they could watch him masturbate. Ritter has blamed this behavior on his ongoing depression.
**

Source:

Naturally, the mainstream media being what it is, we don't hear about this, but instead only hear about the 2 times that undercover officers lured him into agreeing to meet or expose himself to them.

Wikipedia itself distorts the truth too. Immediately after the above text, they state the following:
**
In 2009, when Ritter's sexual offenses with a minor became public, he lost the only regular job he had had in recent years, writing analyses on world events for a private energy firm, and was reported to be heavily in debt.
**

I have found absolutely no evidence that Ritter engaged in "sexual offenses with a minor". What we have hear is a classic case of sloppy reporting. Mr. Ritter was only ever charged with either agreeing to meet with or exposing himself to undercover officers who were -pretending- to be minors.
Wanting to masturbate in front of teen girls is part of "grooming" them for sex. It's Stage 4 as noted below:

Stage 4: Desensitizing the Child to Sexual Content and Physical Contact. In this stage, offenders introduce sexual conversation and touch, with the goal of desensitizing children to it. Offenders might discuss sexualized topics, such as telling inappropriate jokes or providing sexual education, or having sexual conversations. Invasions of privacy, like spying, or “accidental” touching may also occur. Desensitization to touch may begin with physical contact, such as hugging and tickling, that then shifts to wrestling or massages.
 
I hope Pedo Ritter goes away for a very long time.
He wasn't jailed, or even charged with a crime. There's plenty of evidence that the raid and subsequent SWATing of his house were done solely to intimidate him. I get into details in the following thread:
The reason for the raid is because he's a traitor and a pedo.
You've shown no evidence for either of your assertions.
The link and knowledge of US law is enough to prove the point that this wasn't a "Swatting" as you claimed.

I'm going to assume that the link you're referring to is the one that Guno provided, as opposed to the one I provided. Guno's link, which goes to an article from newsnationnow.com, only mentions the initial raid by the FBI. It doesn't mention the subsequent SWATing, also initiated by the FBI, but apparently carried out by the local police department. Scott Ritter goes into detail on this subsequent raid in a video response he made to both the FBI raid -and- the SWATing. It can be seen here:

He gets into the SWATing of his home in the following video, starting at around 9:21. Below is the transcript:

**
The intimidation process didn't stop with the seizure of my archive and the electronic devices by the FBI. Last night, we were SWATed. Ofcourse, the extensive media coverage of the raid has allowed people to get my address, the location of my home, how my home looks, what my cars look like, what the license plates of my car, they doxxed me, basically, the FBI doxxed me. They may not have done it wittingly, but it's been done.

And last night, the FBI flagged a so-called email chain that alleged that somebody affiliated with my household was threatening to carry out a mass shooting, and this prompted a SWAT team from the Bethlehem Police Department to arrive at my house. Now, the good news is that I have a great relationship with the Bethlehem Police Department. They didn't come in guns blazing. In the past, unfortunately, police departments have responded to SWATing calls and it's ended tragically for the people were supposedly trying to protect. The Bethlehem Police Department was extraordinarily professional, they recognized immediately what was happening and they have promised me that they will treat future incidents of this nature responsibly, meaning they have to respond, they have to follow up, but they aren't going to come in guns blazing. But it's disturbing, it's disconcerting, it disrupted my wife's sleep, it's part of a pattern of intimidation that's taking place at the behest of the United States Government, using the FBI as the tool. This isn't what the FBI was created for. This isn't how the United States Government is supposed to be acting. This isn't what the founding fathers of the United States wanted for their country when they wrote the Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press. These are being violated right now. So, for all the people out there who don't like me, there are many of you who don't support what I'm saying, and there are many of you, understand this, there buy for the grace of God, go you. If you're a journalist, you cannot support the United States Government seeking to suppress the free speech rights of a journalist, and whether you like me or not, I am a journalist, with a long and distinguished record of publishing materials in a variety of outlets in the United States and around the world. So this is something that everybody should be concerned about and I will just say is, stay tuned. Tune in Friday night...

**

His last comment refers to an Episode 183 of his "Ask the Inspector" series, hosted by Jeff Norman, wherein he takes questions from his audience. It can be seen here:
 
I'm going to assume that the link you're referring to is the one that Guno provided, as opposed to the one I provided. Guno's link, which goes to an article from newsnationnow.com, only mentions the initial raid by the FBI. It doesn't mention the subsequent SWATing, also initiated by the FBI, but apparently carried out by the local police department. Scott Ritter goes into detail on this subsequent raid in a video response he made to both the FBI raid -and- the SWATing. It can be seen here:

He gets into the SWATing of his home in the following video, starting at around 9:21. Below is the transcript:

**
The intimidation process didn't stop with the seizure of my archive and the electronic devices by the FBI. Last night, we were SWATed. Ofcourse, the extensive media coverage of the raid has allowed people to get my address, the location of my home, how my home looks, what my cars look like, what the license plates of my car, they doxxed me, basically, the FBI doxxed me. They may not have done it wittingly, but it's been done.

And last night, the FBI flagged a so-called email chain that alleged that somebody affiliated with my household was threatening to carry out a mass shooting, and this prompted a SWAT team from the Bethlehem Police Department to arrive at my house. Now, the good news is that I have a great relationship with the Bethlehem Police Department. They didn't come in guns blazing. In the past, unfortunately, police departments have responded to SWATing calls and it's ended tragically for the people were supposedly trying to protect. The Bethlehem Police Department was extraordinarily professional, they recognized immediately what was happening and they have promised me that they will treat future incidents of this nature responsibly, meaning they have to respond, they have to follow up, but they aren't going to come in guns blazing. But it's disturbing, it's disconcerting, it disrupted my wife's sleep, it's part of a pattern of intimidation that's taking place at the behest of the United States Government, using the FBI as the tool. This isn't what the FBI was created for. This isn't how the United States Government is supposed to be acting. This isn't what the founding fathers of the United States wanted for their country when they wrote the Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press. These are being violated right now. So, for all the people out there who don't like me, there are many of you who don't support what I'm saying, and there are many of you, understand this, there buy for the grace of God, go you. If you're a journalist, you cannot support the United States Government seeking to suppress the free speech rights of a journalist, and whether you like me or not, I am a journalist, with a long and distinguished record of publishing materials in a variety of outlets in the United States and around the world. So this is something that everybody should be concerned about and I will just say is, stay tuned. Tune in Friday night...

**

His last comment refers to an Episode 183 of his "Ask the Inspector" series, hosted by Jeff Norman, wherein he takes questions from his audience. It can be seen here:
So, besides Ritter being a pedo and a traitor, he's also a drama queen?

I could only find links to the FBI raid, not this supposed "swatting", although I have no doubt the local police showed up at his door for some reason.

Ritter, a convicted sex offender, told reporters outside his Delmar home after the raid that the warrant focused on potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the Times Union reported.

He recently had his passport seized by the US Department of State as he tried to fly to Russia for a conference – a brouhaha he contended in the Russian propaganda site RT was a spiteful move against his pro-Russia stances....

...Ritter was found guilty in 2011 of having an explicit online chat with a detective who pretended to be a 15-year-old girl. He spent around two and a half years in prison.

He was also twice accused in 2001 of having pervy contact with teenage girls, including arranging a sex rendezvous at Burger King with someone he believed was a 16-year-old girl – a case in which his charges were dismissed....

...In recent years, Ritter has become increasingly aligned with Russia. In 2022, his Twitter account was briefly suspended after he claimed Ukrainian police, not Russian forces, killed hundreds in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

905htr.jpg
 
I'm going to assume that the link you're referring to is the one that Guno provided, as opposed to the one I provided. Guno's link, which goes to an article from newsnationnow.com, only mentions the initial raid by the FBI. It doesn't mention the subsequent SWATing, also initiated by the FBI, but apparently carried out by the local police department. Scott Ritter goes into detail on this subsequent raid in a video response he made to both the FBI raid -and- the SWATing. It can be seen here:

He gets into the SWATing of his home in the following video, starting at around 9:21. Below is the transcript:

**
The intimidation process didn't stop with the seizure of my archive and the electronic devices by the FBI. Last night, we were SWATed. Ofcourse, the extensive media coverage of the raid has allowed people to get my address, the location of my home, how my home looks, what my cars look like, what the license plates of my car, they doxxed me, basically, the FBI doxxed me. They may not have done it wittingly, but it's been done.

And last night, the FBI flagged a so-called email chain that alleged that somebody affiliated with my household was threatening to carry out a mass shooting, and this prompted a SWAT team from the Bethlehem Police Department to arrive at my house. Now, the good news is that I have a great relationship with the Bethlehem Police Department. They didn't come in guns blazing. In the past, unfortunately, police departments have responded to SWATing calls and it's ended tragically for the people were supposedly trying to protect. The Bethlehem Police Department was extraordinarily professional, they recognized immediately what was happening and they have promised me that they will treat future incidents of this nature responsibly, meaning they have to respond, they have to follow up, but they aren't going to come in guns blazing. But it's disturbing, it's disconcerting, it disrupted my wife's sleep, it's part of a pattern of intimidation that's taking place at the behest of the United States Government, using the FBI as the tool. This isn't what the FBI was created for. This isn't how the United States Government is supposed to be acting. This isn't what the founding fathers of the United States wanted for their country when they wrote the Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press. These are being violated right now. So, for all the people out there who don't like me, there are many of you who don't support what I'm saying, and there are many of you, understand this, there buy for the grace of God, go you. If you're a journalist, you cannot support the United States Government seeking to suppress the free speech rights of a journalist, and whether you like me or not, I am a journalist, with a long and distinguished record of publishing materials in a variety of outlets in the United States and around the world. So this is something that everybody should be concerned about and I will just say is, stay tuned. Tune in Friday night...

**

His last comment refers to an Episode 183 of his "Ask the Inspector" series, hosted by Jeff Norman, wherein he takes questions from his audience. It can be seen here:
So, besides Ritter being a pedo and a traitor, he's also a drama queen?

As I've mentioned many times before, there's no evidence that Ritter has ever done anything innapropriate with a minor. He's been the victim of 2 police stings wherein undercover officers infiltrated adult chat sites that Ritter was on and -pretended- to be minors. In both cases, Ritter said that he knew the people he was speaking to weren't minors. I base this on a New York Times article I've referenced before. Quoting from it:
**
At trial, Ritter told the jury that he assumed Venneman was a housewife pretending to be 15, and that he had never for a moment believed he was talking to a minor, despite the fact that “Emily” repeatedly stated her age. When prosecutors were successful in moving to unseal his New York files and presented evidence from those arrests too, Ritter steadfastly maintained that he was aware, in both instances, that he was talking to undercover cops.
**
Source:

Now, I'll grant that, at least based on the above article, Ritter's claim seems to change, at least in regards to Venneman. Either he thought Venneman was a housewife or he thought Venneman was an undercover officer. But while we can certainly question who Ritter really thought Venneman was, the fact remains that Venneman was an adult, as was the previous undercover officer he chatted with, and no minors were involved. Another point I believe I've made before is, who authorized the unsealing of Ritter's New York Files? They clearly seem to have played an important role in his conviction. Could it be that the files were unsealed precisely because of Ritter's public stance in regards to the Iraq war?

I strongly suspect that the following passage from the above linked article offers a strong clue:
**
History will record, though, that Ritter was right, while those who showed him nothing but contempt were flat wrong. While he wasn’t the only one saying that the war’s pretense was false or that its aftermath could be calamitous, Ritter was almost certainly the most determined dissenter and the one with the most on-the-ground intelligence. And if his views on Hussein’s regime careened from one extreme to the other, at least he demonstrated a capacity to evolve in his thinking — something few policy makers or commentators showed themselves able to do at the time. No doubt his very existence continues to discomfit those who insisted on Hussein’s lethality, and whose explanation for why they were wrong — that the intelligence was fabricated, essentially — has always been undercut by the fact that Ritter was never taken in.
**

One can also ask another question- what motivated the 2 undercover officers to infiltrate the adult chat rooms that Mr. Ritter just happened to be in? Here's the introduction to the New York Times article I've been quoting:
**
On a February afternoon in 2009, Ryan Venneman, one of only five full-time police officers in tiny Barrett Township, Pa., decided to spend some time hunting for sexual predators online. Venneman entered a Yahoo chat room, where the minimum legal age is supposed be 18, and passed himself off as a teenager named Emily. Before long, he was contacted by a man who said he was 44 and called himself delmarm4fun — a reference to Delmar, N.Y., an Albany suburb about three hours from where Venneman was sitting in the Poconos.
**

I can't help but wonder why 20% of the Barrett Township's full time police force decided to "spend some time hunting for sexual predators online". Sure, it may be that it was just a spur of the moment type of thing, but it's also possible that the Barret Township police force was encouraged to do so, perhaps encouraged to see if they could lure Mr. Ritter into the situation he was later arrested and charged for. Perhaps we'll never know.

I could only find links to the FBI raid, not this supposed "swatting", although I have no doubt the local police showed up at his door for some reason.

That in and of itself is revealing. Why do you suppose the mainstream media neglected to mention that following the FBI raid, he was then SWATed?

Anyway, here's an article I just found on the internet that mentions the swatting:

It actually cleared up something for me, as I'd thought that he may have been swatted because of his meeting with RFK Jr., but Ritter mentions that the warrant had been signed before his meeting with RFK.
 
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