MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A former Minnesota nurse charged with persuading two people through an online chat room to commit suicide will accept the evidence against him and let a judge decide his fate, authorities said on Tuesday.

William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, has agreed to skip a trial and let a judge weigh the prosecution's evidence, then render a verdict within seven days, Rice County Prosecutor Paul Beaumaster said in a statement.

Melchert-Dinkel, a former hospital nurse from Faribault, near Minneapolis, was portrayed in court documents as obsessed with suicide, trolling chat rooms for depressed and suicidal people and sometimes pledging to die along with them.

He was charged with aiding suicide and could face 30 years in prison for persuading two victims to end their lives: Mark Drybrough, 32, of Coventry, Britain, who hanged himself at his home in 2005; and Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Ottawa, Canada, who drowned after jumping into a river in 2008.

Judge Thomas Neuville will consider the evidence beginning on February 17 when Melchert-Dinkel is due to enter his plea -- called a Lothenbach plea that preserves his right to appeal aspects of the case. The judge has previously ruled against defense arguments that Melchert-Dinkel was engaged in protected free speech, but those rulings could be appealed.

Mechert-Dinkel has told authorities he had a role in as many as five suicides and may have watched at least one of his alleged victims die via webcam, according to court documents.

When confronted by police, he admitted faking suicide pacts with 10 or 11 individuals, characterizing his actions as "the thrill of the chase," according to the documents.

Melchert-Dinkel suggested to prospective victims how best to drown themselves; or how much rope to buy, how to tie a slip knot, and what it would feel like to hang themselves, according to the documents.

A British woman who frequented one of the chat rooms warned authorities that a predator posing as a "young, kind, sympathetic woman who worked as an emergency room nurse (was) encouraging people to commit suicide," the documents said.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern. Edited by Peter Bohan)