Critic of Polygraph Tests Accused of Teaching People to Lie to Government

11/18/2014

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For at least the second time since 2012, the federal government has brought criminal charges, accusing someone of training people on how to beat a polygraph test.

On Friday, prosecutors announced an indictment against Douglas G. Williams, a 69-year-old man from Norman, Okla., who’s accused of coaching people “how to lie and conceal crimes” during federally administered lie-detector tests.

Mr. Williams, who operates a company called Polygraph.com, says the mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges leveled against him are an “attack on his First Amendment rights.” The indictment follows the federal prosecution of an Indiana man who received eight months in prison in 2013 after pleading guilty to similar charges.

“This indictment was brought to punish and silence me because I have the audacity to protest the use of the polygraph,” Mr. Williams said in a statement Monday.

Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Williams “trained an individual posing as a federal law enforcement officer to lie and conceal involvement in criminal activity from an internal agency investigation.” He’s also accused of training another person “posing as an applicant seeking federal employment” to trick a pre-employment polygraph examination.” The Justice Department says the two individuals paid Mr. Williams for the services and were instructed by him to deny having receiving his training.

The U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s internal affairs office and the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office led the investigation into his work.

Mr. Williams says that as a former polygraph examiner for the Oklahoma City police department in the 1970s, he came to distrust the tests and made it his life mission to teach people how to trick them.

“I have the dubious distinction of being the only licensed polygraphist to ever tell the truth about the so called ‘lie detector,’ ” he wrote in a recent self-published book. “And the truth is, the polygraph is no more accurate than the toss of a coin in determining whether a person is telling the truth or lying.”

His case mirrors the prosecution of Chad Dixon, a 34-year-old from Marion, Ind. who pleaded guilty to obstruction of an agency proceeding and wire fraud in 2012. The government accused him of operating an online company that taught law enforcement and national security job applicants how to beat a polygraph if they were ”flat out lying.”

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