Accused Russian Spy Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins Evidently Beat the Polygraph to Penetrate INSCOM and the DIA

On Thursday, 20 August 2020, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted former U.S. Army Special Forces officer Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins of Gainesville, Virginia on a single count of “Conspiracy to Gather or Deliver Defense Information to Aid a Foreign Government.” Debbins was arrested on Friday, 21 August 2020. The indictment … Read more

Accused Spy Alexander Yuk Ching Ma Evidently Beat the Polygraph to Penetrate the FBI

On Thursday, 13 August 2020, FBI Special Agent Chris Jensen filed under seal a criminal complaint against Alexander Yuk Ching Ma of Honolulu, Hawaii, charging him with “Conspiracy to Gather and Communicate National Defense Information of the United States to a Foreign Nation.” On Monday, 17 August 2020, the complaint was unsealed. In an accompanying … Read more

Ignatz Theodor Griebl: The Nazi Spy Who Escaped Thanks to the Polygraph

The FBI’s first documented use of the polygraph in an espionage investigation came in 1938 in connection with a Nazi German spy ring operating in the United States. The most important suspect interrogated with the polygraph was Dr. Ignatz Theodor Griebl, a medical officer in the U.S. army reserve who is believed to have been … Read more

NITV Falsely Claims Peer-Reviewed Study Shows CVSA Is Highly Accurate

The so-named National Institute for Truth Verification (NITV), which markets a putative lie detector called the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA), and its associated group, the National Association of Computer Voice Stress Analysts (NACVSA),1 have in recent years claimed that a 2012 independent peer-reviewed study shows that CVSA has an accuracy rate on the order … Read more

San Jose P.D. Polygraph Operator Robert E. Foster Charged with Multiple Felonies

The Santa Clara County, California District Attorney’s Office has charged Robert E. Foster, a polygraph operator with the San Jose Police Department, “with using his private security company to commit insurance fraud, tax evasion, wage theft, and about $18 million in money laundering.” The case against Foster is summarized in a press release that is … Read more

Polygraph Critic Doug Williams Completes Supervised Release

On 25 September 2015, federal judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange sentenced Doug Williams, who pled guilty after he was entrapped in a federal sting operation called “Operation Lie Busters,” to two years of imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release “[u]pon release from imprisonment.” Williams had taught two undercover federal agents how to pass … Read more

Charlatan v. Charlatan: NITV Sues E. Gary Baker

On Wednesday, 17 June 2020, “Dr.” Charles Humble’s NITV Federal Services, LLC, which markets the scientifically baseless Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA) to governmental agencies, filed in a Florida court an amended complaint in litigation against competitor Elwood Gary Baker, who runs Baker Group International, and his associate Michael Savage, who runs Expertos VSA, Inc. … Read more

TV Polygraph Operator Daniel Ribacoff Denies Falsely Branding Steve Wilkos Show Guest as a Liar, But Deletes Posts When Challenged

Polygraph operator Daniel Ribacoff, who performs for the NBCUniversal Television Distribution syndicated daytime television talk program, The Steve Wilkos Show, has publicly denied having wrongly accused show guest Anca Pennington of lying. In an unaired segment recorded on 11 December 2019, Ribacoff accused Pennington of lying when she denied having burned her infant daughter with … Read more

Book Review: False Confessions: The True Story of Doug Williams and His Crusade Against the Polygraph Industry

In 2012, former Oklahoma City Police Department polygraph operator-turned-critic Douglas Gene Williams published his autobiography under the title, From Cop to Crusader: My Fight Against the Dangerous Myth of “Lie Detection.” In 2014, he released a second edition, adding an account of the raid conducted by federal agents on his home and office as part … Read more