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Douglas Williams Pleads Guilty To Training Customers To Beat Polygraph

Posted by timothy on from the but-antipolygraph-is-still-up dept.

For quite a while, we've been following the case of Douglas Gene Williams, accused of and indicted for teaching people to pass polygraph tests that they might otherwise have been unable to, and for the claims he made in advertising this training -- and specifically for showing his techniques to some undercover Federal agents. Now, reports Ars Technica, Williams has pleaded guilty to five charges of obstruction of justice and mail fraud. From the article: Williams isn't the first person prosecuted for these type of allegations. An Indiana man was accused of offering similar services and was sentenced in 2013 to eight months in prison. The judge presiding over the case said the case blended a "gray area" of First Amendment speech and the unlawful act of instructing people to lie on polygraph tests issued by the federal government. Williams' site, Polygraph.com, is now defunct.

6 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Pledge innocent and demand polygraph for himself? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Couldn't he just pledged innocent and prove it with a polygraph test?

  2. From the court transcript... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Prosecutors were not amused when Douglas volunteered to take a polygraph test to prove that he wasn't teaching people how to beat polygraph tests.

  3. Re:The trick... by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No matter how many of these tests I do, I still really dislike that anal probe that measures how stressed my anus is.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  4. Re:The trick... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think it's more that he was specifically stating that he would assist his customers in lying to the government on job applications and the like.

    In unrelated news, I'm hosting a class on how to beat lie detectors, but it's for entertainment purposes only. And I'll take a lie detector test to prove it.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  5. Re:The trick... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    clench your anus while the machine is being calibrated

    Um, that wasn't a lie detector.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Except with a polygraph test, the scenarios change to:
    1. Please teach me how to eat this jelly bean.
    2. Please teach me how to launch nuclear missiles by eating this jelly bean.
    Are you defrauding a deluded man? Perhaps. Are you participating in his commission of a crime? Not unless one can really launch missiles by eating jelly beans.