The Michigan State Police polygraph operator who falsely accused Lisa Hansen of Grand Rapids of deception regarding the alleged embezzlement of funds from her employer has been identified as Sergeant Ben Escalante. On 23 August 2006, Grand Rapids WZZM 13 News reported:
The Muskegon based public interest group Innocent, today called for a public apology from, reprimand and reassignment of a Michigan state police officer.
Sgt. Ben Escalante of the Michigan State Police gave a lie detector test to Lisa Hanson [sic], age 25, of Grand Rapids.
The test was administered at Hanson’s request.
Hanson had been wrongly accused of stealing a night deposit bag from her employer.
Hanson stated that Sgt. Escalante accused her of the theft and lying while giving her the test.
Hanson then failed the test.
Hanson’s attorney says that the results of the test helped the Grand Rapids Police Department to decide to arrest Hanson and charge her with misdemeanor embezzlement.
The night deposit bag was later discovered by the bank where it had been dropped off.
Doug Tjapkes, president of INNOCENT, an organization that works on behalf of people wrongly accused, sent a letter to the Michigan State Police Commander, Peter Munoz, asking that Sgt. Escalante be reprimanded, re-assigned and apologize to Hanson.
Tjapkes is concerned that Escalante’s behavior does a disservice to polygraph operators who must be completely objective.
INNOCENT often recommends that people claiming wrongful conviction take a polygraph test to support their case.
A copy of the letter was also sent to Governor Jennifer Granholm.
Sgt. Escalante’s erroneous finding that Lisa Hansen was deceptive was not necessarily the result of any misconduct on his part. That an invalid test produced erroneous results should surprise no one.
My fiance was wrongly accused of sexual misconduct. His name was put on the Child Protective Services Central Registry. He was innocent, and a polygraph test was the only peice of evidence against him. Yet, the was the “preponderance” of evidence they needed to add his name to the Registry. However, the mother of the child making the accusation also had a child with my fiance. Even after the accusation, she never once refused to let him take their son. There is, of course a LOT more to the story, and evidence proving he is innocent. But Child Protective Services didn’t care.
This is UNREAL.. just think of how many other men and women out there that have been wrongly accused of a crime that they did not commit. In this country you are NOT innocent until you are proven guilty, it is the other way around. Last year my cousin was babysitting for his sister-in-law, the baby at 5 or 6 months old was sick and had been vommitting all evening. He became very concerned and tried to feed the baby some milk, as this was happening the baby started choking and turning blue, he dialed 911 and was begging for help and they were giving him instructions on how to do CPR, I don’t know about you but the average person does not know how to do CPR on an adult let alone a baby. The baby ended up dying at Children’s Hospital, right away the doctors tried to put the blame on my cousin James Morrison, the police were notified and then he was arrested and hauled off to jail while his child at the age of 9 stood, begging and screaming to the police that his daddy was trying to save the baby. He spent several months in jail, his name ran thru the dirt and child services wanted to put his name on that list that he murdered that child!!The family and community got together and hired a lawyer to get him out of jail and try and clear his name!!! All of this and they had NO solid proof that he did anything wrong. This is happening all over the country. He in fact is now home with his family because he was INNOCENT all along but the trauma and mental anguish the family had to deal with is quite overwhelming. Thank God his family was able to hire a lawyer, just think of how many people are in prison for a crime that they did not committ because they did not have the funds to hire a lawyer to help them prove that they were INNOCENT!!!! Good Luck to all those who are still fighting I wish you the very best.
Lisa W
I was first scheduled for a polygraph on September 22, 2003 at 1:00PM with Trooper Ben Escalante of the Michigan State Police at the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department in the Port Sheldon Road Complex.
On that day, I reported to the OCSD for my polygraph at 12:52PM. I checked in at the main window there and told the staff workers for the OCSD who I was, what I was there for and who I was supposed to meet. They informed me that they would tell him I was there. At just after 1:00PM, I went to the window again and inquired about my appointment. I was told that Mr. Escalante was aware I was there and to wait patiently.
At 1:12PM, I went back to the window to tell them that I know these things take two hours and I had to get my daughter from school at Fruitport Middle School that day. I already was going to be late and had made arrangement with her to wait until 3:30PM when I would pick her up. She got out of school about 2:50PM. Now if, as I accurately surmised, a polygraph examination would take about two hours, then a little after three o’clock would give me enough time to get her with some latitude in time.
Again, they told me he knew I was there and he would be with me in a moment. At 1:22PM, I went back to the window and was basically told the same thing. They also told me that Mr. Escalante was “getting familiar with the case notes.” Before I went to the polygraph, I read where making a subject about to take a polygraph wait a long time is a tactic of some unscrupulous polygraph examiners. This tactic is similar to “icing” a field goal kicker in football; waiting ratchets up the tension, so to speak. If there is enough anxiety, then there is a good possibility, even probability, that the subject will fail the polygraph.
I returned to the window at 1:33PM, and told them if he did not come out soon, I was going to leave, I had to get my daughter. They said okay, but they again told me he would be out in a minute.
At 1:41PM, I told the OCSD staff I was leaving because I had to go and get my daughter. I did not have any more time to wait.
I left the OCSD and went to the parking lot there to call my attorney to tell him what was going on. At the time, cell phone reception was poor there and I barely got through. I only managed to get out that I was leaving before the call dropped. Now I went to my car and of a sudden, this black-haired Latino looking man, nattily dressed in a burgundy dress shirt, black dress shoes and slacks came out of the building and starting yelling across the lot asking for Mike Jardine. I acknowledged him and told him who I was.
He introduced himself as Mr. Escalante, instead of Trooper Escalante of the Michigan State Police. This did not sit well with me and I became increasingly apprehensive about taking the test. He also told me that he was ready, apologizing for the delay because he said, and the OCSD staff had already iterated, he was busy “familiarizing himself with the case notes.” He also stated that he was “taking his lunch.”
I apologized to him and stated that I had to go now because he took so much time getting to me. I said that if I was him and I knew I had a one o’clock appointment, I would have read the case notes prior to that time and would have taken my lunch on time and been ready when the subject arrived for the test. I also explained to him that I had read about how polygraph examiners intentionally keep a subject waiting in order to make them more anxious. He then stated that I could take the test or not, he did not care. However, he stated, “A co-operative person will take the test. An un-cooperative one won’t.” To this day, I still don’t understand what he meant by that. It seemed inane. I replied, “Define co-operative. I arrived about 10 minutes early to take a polygraph I am under no legal obligation to take. I waited over 40 minutes for you to come out. You come out here to fetch me and feed me some line about you had to take your lunch, and look over the case notes and you do not introduce yourself by your real title with your name. Who is being disingenuous now? Who is lying now? Maybe you were not trying to make me more anxious, but you have not engendered any trust here. I have to go and get my daughter now and I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
Trooper Escalante seemed more than a little miffed by this and he said that he “did not have a vested interest in determining my guilt or innocence.” Yet when I knew he was a State Trooper, I did not trust that. As a law enforcement officer, my belief was that he could be more interested in catching crooks than in the Truth. Considering what was going on with my family at the time and my parent’s wrongful death suit, I was not inclined to trust anyone with a badge, especially one that had apparently done his best to not be totally honest and transparent with me.
After our discussion, I left. I was not happy and I could tell he was not happy, either. Later, my lawyer got angry with me because I did not stay, but I had bent over enough and I felt I was being played with. I no longer wanted to take any polygraph test.
In a handwritten and initialed comment on the appointment letter, Det. Lyman (the detective invesitgating the theft) wrote “Refused Test on arrival.” I am not certain, but I assume that he wrote something that Trooper Escalante told him via a phone conversation. If that was so, Trooper Escalante was being more than a little disingenuous; unless of course, Trooper Escalante meant I refused test upon HIS arrival. That would be more or less true, but not logical. I did not drive all the way down to OCSD on Port Sheldon Road from Muskegon to turn around and leave 5 minutes after I arrived. When I arrived for the test at 12:52PM and did not leave until well after 1:40PM, that was not by any stretch of the imagination “upon arrival.”
Against my better judgment, my lawyer re-scheduled the exam. I reluctantly agreed to go as long as Trooper Escalante was not going to be my examiner. However, when I returned to the OCSD to take the exam, it was Trooper Escalante who was to be the examiner. After our last encounter, I was pretty upset by that.
Before the exam, Trooper Escalante reiterated that he had “no interest in determining my guilt or innocence.” Yet, right after he administered the test, he said that “I can tell by my machine right here that you are definitely the one who stole the video projector.” I told him that no matter what his computer said, it cannot make me something I am not; a thief. I was not amazed that I did not pass the exam.
Trooper Escalante then started to “interrogate” me. He said something to the effect of, “I know how these things get started. You get caught up in things that get out of control and these things just happen. Why don’t you tell me why you stole the projector? What really happened? I told him, “Wow. You can tell that from that little machine? You know, for a man who says he has “no vested interest in determining my guilt or innocence, you sure seem interested in doing so now. Why can’t you just write up your report and send it to the prosecutor? We are done here. Now.” I then left.
Consider this: according to the Department of Licensing and Professional Regulation, at the time Trooper Escalante had given me the exam he had been a fully licensed polygraph examiner for about a year. Mr. Anderson had been fully licensed for over 20 years.
Additionally, Trooper Escalante was the polygraph examiner for a woman that was wrongfully convicted of a theft from Panopolous Salon in Grand Rapids, MI. She told the absolute truth during her exam, yet Trooper Escalante was in the local paper as her examiner and the article said she had failed the polygraph test. It later turned out that the bag of money she was accused of stealing from her employer was found inside the night drop box at the bank she was supposed to have taken it almost a year after the fact. It was jammed into a corner of the drawer box the night she deposited it. It was later found by a bank employee. The woman has since settled lawsuits against her employer and her record has been expunged.
That event left me to wonder, absent other objective exculpatory evidence in how many of Trooper Escalante’s examinations are the subjects found to be truthful?
scheduled a polygraph examination with Terry Anderson, a fully trained and licensed polygraph examiner. If memory serves correctly, he is a former Michigan State Police trooper. As he had been doing this type of work since 1978, he was and is certainly well trained and experienced.
I have a letter that gives Mr. Anderson’s expert opinion concerning the matter of the stolen LCD video projector.
I passed this polygraph on July 15, 2003.
As I stated earlier, I do not believe in polygraph exams.
If one believes they are accurate, then to that person there were two tests; one said I was truthful, one said I was not truthful. At best, the logical conclusion is that the tests mutually cancel each other and the result is inconclusive. All that time and effort was a total wash.
If one truly believes in these exams, then it should also come down to which opinion is valid. A subject cannot both be telling the Truth and be lying. To my mind, the only way to determine that is to weigh the experience, training and record of one examiner versus another. The quality of the examiner and his testing method should come into play. I realize that it is a difficult decision. What I would like to point out is, despite the assumption that just because Mr. Anderson was hired by my lawyer, I submit that as such he really had no motive to say I was being truthful when I was not. He got paid either way.
However, if I were a betting man, I would take the experience, training and skill of Mr. Anderson over Trooper Escalante. As is anyone’s right, they may feel different.
Finally, how did the fact that I failed a polygraph test make it into my pre-sentence report yet proof I passed one did not?
It must be apparent that to even the most cynical, considering these two documented instances, SGT Escalante has a dubious, at best, track record concerning his objectivity and competence in relation to his ability to do this kind of work. Of course, that is just MY opinion.