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Archives > Volume 8 Issue 4 - January 15, 2010 Ex-Chief UN Weapons Inspector caught in another child sex sting...Former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter was arrested in a Pennsylvania sex sting in November on a litany of charges involving a lewd Internet conversation with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl. Fox News story here 
Ritter, 48, allegedly masturbated in front of a Web camera while he was engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room with an undercover cop posing as the teenage girl. He declined to discuss the charges Thursday when reporters visited his New York residence.
"I said there would be no comment," Ritter said, according to the Albany Times Union. "Why don't you guys just go away?" The chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and harsh critic of the war in Iraq, Ritter is accused of contacting the "girl" while using the handle "delmarm4fun" last February. Ritter, of Delmar, New York, allegedly told the girl, "Emily," that he was a 44-year-old man from Albany, New York, according to an affidavit of probable cause. Click here to read the affidavit. The conversation with the girl allegedly took place on February 7, 2009, but the police investigation lasted until November. Ritter was arrested on November 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. Ritter appeared for his preliminary hearing on December 17 and waived the felony charge of unlawful contact with a minor. He remains free on $25,000 bail. Ritter was reportedly charged in a June 2001 sex sting in New York, but the case was dismissed. He had been charged with attempted child endangerment after arranging to meet a person he thought was a 16-year-old girl at a fast-food restaurant. The girl was actually an undercover police officer. The New York Post reported Ritter was caught in a similar case in April 2001 involving a 14-year-old girl, but he was never charged. Shawn Hornbeck releases PSA... It has been three years since the "Missouri Miracle." Shawn Hornbeck was found alive in a Kirkwood apartment three years ago Tuesday after being missing for four years. KTVI News story here 
Shawn disappeared when he was 11 years old while riding a bike in Richwoods, Missouri. (See vol5_iss3, vol5_iss4, vol5_iss67, and vol5_iss68 for more on this story) Shawn will turn 19 this summer. He is now reaching out over the internet.
His message encouraging children to speak up when someone puts them in an uncomfortable situation is posted on the Hornbeck Foundation's website. Shawn says in the message, "I'm Shawn Hornbeck. When I was 11 years old, I was riding my bike near my home when I was kidnapped by a stranger. I was held captive for 4 1/2 years. If you see something, say something. Reach out to someone. There's always someone willing to help, and no matter where you are, be aware of your surroundings." Despite being held captive for more than 1,500 days, Shawn made spectacular progress with his schooling. On the foundation's website, his parents say he made up the four years of school he missed in such short order, that he will graduate with his class on time. Shawn has also dedicated himself to helping other kids who are abducted as he was. Last year, he contacted Jaycee Dugard, the California woman who had been abducted as a girl and held for 18 years as a sex slave, to help her rejoin her real family and the real world. Today Show story here In other news... 
Elizabeth Johnson, the Arizona mother jailed after she disappeared with her about-to-be-adopted infant son, confirmed in a brief jailhouse interview that 8-month-old Gabriel Johnson is alive. ABC Good Morning America story here Johnson, a striking 23-year-old, has been jailed following her arrest on kidnapping and child abuse charges after Gabriel disappeared on her cross country trip in which she allegedly sent text messages to the boy's biological father that she had killed their son. "Yes I'm sure he's alive," Johnson confirmed today. She was being visited by Tammi Smith, who, along with her husband Jack Smith, says they were in talks with Johnson to adopt Gabriel before he disappeared. The Smiths have been named persons of interest by Tempe, Arizona, police for potentially withholding information about the case. The Smiths have stuck by Johnson, but recently told ABC News that they are frustrated and want Johnson to tell police what she did with the baby. Tammi Smith told Johnson in jail that she and her husband have been blamed for Gabriel's disappearance. For more on this story, see vol8_iss2 and vol8_iss3.
About one in four female teens is involved in some sort of violent behavior at school or at work, according to a government report. Fox News story here A survey of more than 33,000 girls and women aged 12 to 17 found that 26.7 percent had been involved in a serious fight at school or work, a group-against-group fight or had attacked someone with the intent to harm the person in the previous year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported Thursday. "In the public mind, acts of teenage violence are most commonly associated with boys," the report observed, but "it is clear that the problem is pervasive among girls as well." Males do have a higher rate of violence, the report added, with 33.6 percent engaged in one of the types of acts in the year before the study. Still, SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde called the report alarming. "We need to do a better job reaching girls at risk and teaching them how to resolve problems without resorting to violence," she said. The new survey was done between 2006 and 2008 and the results are similar to those in a SAMHSA study from 2002-2004. The full report is available online at OAS SAMHSA/female violence.
Police from multiple departments raided locations in 34 counties across Georgia Tuesday morning in a crackdown on a suspected Internet child pornography ring, the GBI confirmed. Police have made 40 arrests. WSB story here John Bankhead of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the operation was code-named Operation Restore Hope. "This state-wide endeavor includes 24 local agencies, four federal agencies (FBI, ICE, the Secret Service and U. S. Postal Service), the three U. S. Attorneys Offices in Georgia (Northern, Middle and Southern Districts) and the Georgia attorney generals office," Bankhead said in a release. Bankhead said the raids came after a three month investigation led by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. Officials said 88 search warrants were executed Tuesday in Georgia in connection with the distribution of child porn over the Internet. John Whitaker, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who led the operation, reported that his office has so far pinpointed 50,000 separate IP addresses - the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number - that are trading child pornography. He said Georgia's tally is the fifth-highest number in the nation. Fox News story here
Several Supreme Court justices on Tuesday seemed open to the idea of continuing to let the federal government indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous" after their federal prison terms are complete. LA Times story here "You are talking about endangering the health and safety of people, so the government has some responsibility, doesn't it?" said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lower courts have said the federal government cannot do this. But in arguments before the high court Tuesday, Solicitor General Elena Kagan said the government has a responsibility to ensure that sexual predators are not turned back onto the streets. The federal government's responsibility and power extends to ensuring "those people who have been in custody are released responsibly," Kagan said. Kagan compared the government's power to commit sexual predators to its power to quarantine federal inmates whose sentences have expired but have a highly contagious and deadly disease. "Would anybody say that the federal government would not have Article I power to effect that kind of public safety measure? And the exact same thing is true here. This is exactly what Congress is doing here," she said. Several justices seemed to agree with her. "It seems to me that the constitutional answer is the same in this statute as in the case of somebody who incurs a very communicable disease and the government wants to prevent him from infecting the community," said Justice John Paul Stevens. Federal public defender G. Alan DuBois said this practice would overstep official bounds when it comes to sentencing people for federal crimes. The federal government "doesn't have the power to detain individuals as a result of their mental illness based on the fear that they are going to go out and commit a crime," he said. Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with him, saying that to allow the federal government to indefinitely hold dangerous people because states won't do it "is a recipe for the federal government taking over everything." The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled last year that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing the government to hold indefinitely people who are considered "sexually dangerous." In April, Chief Justice John Roberts granted an administration request to block the release of up to 77 inmates at a federal prison in North Carolina. These were people whose prison terms for sex offenses were ending. The justice's order was designed to allow time for the high court to consider the administration's appeal. Civil commitment was authorized by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which President George W. Bush signed in July 2006. The act, named after the son of "America's Most Wanted" television host John Walsh, also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions are not being challenged.
A 10-year-old Arizona boy who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his father's friend in November 2008 apologized Thursday for hurting the man's family and was ordered to a residential treatment program. ABC15 News story here Defense attorneys and prosecutors had pushed for the St. Johns boy to be placed in a private treatment facility in Maricopa County, but Judge Monica Stauffer also had the option of sending him to a county juvenile detention facility. St. Johns Police said when the boy was 8 years old he shot and killed his father, Vincent Romero, and a man renting a room from them, Tim Romans. In a February plea deal the murder charge was dropped and the boy instead pled guilty to a lesser charge of negligent homicide for the death of Tim Romans. For more on this story, see vol6_iss74 and vol6_iss75.
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