INSPECTOR’S PERVY SAGA (U.N. man got a pass, DA admits)

Scott Ritter, a 41 year old former U.N. weapons inspector, shouldn't have gotten a free pass after he was arrested for soliciting an underage girl in a police Internet sting, says the district attorney whose office muffed the case by dropping the charge.  Ritter was arrested by police in June 2001 after luring a 16 year old girl he met on the Internet to a Burger King.  Two months earlier he was caught in a similar undercover operation in volving a 14 year old girl but was released without being charged.  In the June case his intent was to have the teen watch while he masturbated.  His scheme failed because he unknowingly set up the tryst with an undercover investigator posing as a minor and he ended up charged with attempted child endangerment, a misdemeanor.  But because the ex-Marines' arrest record was sealed after an assistant DA, Ritter's lawyer and a a town court judge worked out a deal to have the case adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, there is no longer an official record.