Several Federal Bureau of Investigation agents searched the Delmar home of area native and former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter on Wednesday. Several boxes of materials were removed in the raid on the Dover Drive property, which the FBI said was part of an ongoing federal investigation.
While Ritter worked as chief weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, he later served time in prison and then became an author and critic.
Ritter served three years in a Pennsylvania prison. He was convicted following an online sex sting for having a sexually explicit conversation with a person who Ritter thought was a 15-year-old girl.
On Wednesday, Ritter emerged from his home and told reporters the FBI executed a search warrant related to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The act requires "certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities," according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Ritter said he had not violated the act, and claimed he was being targeted for statements he's made about U.S. policy on Ukraine.
"I’m being targeted because I have made an effort to try and improve relations between the United States and Russia, try to bring about arms control, try to bring about peace," he said.
U.S. officials seized Ritter's passport in June, according to published reports confirmed by Ritter on Wednesday.
