{"id":4224,"date":"2004-08-14T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2004-08-14T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=4224"},"modified":"2021-03-22T07:41:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T12:41:50","slug":"atlanta-former-mayor-campbell-passes-polygraph-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/14\/atlanta-former-mayor-campbell-passes-polygraph-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta: &#8220;Former Mayor Campbell Passes Polygraph Test&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>Bill Rankin of the Atlanta <i>Journal-Constitution<\/i> reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nFacing the prospect of a federal corruption indictment, former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell took the offensive Friday with the announcement he had passed a polygraph examination.<\/p>\n<p>The examination, which cost Campbell $600, was administered Friday by a former director of the FBI&#8217;s polygraph unit who is now a private examiner in Knoxville.<\/p>\n<p>Kendall Shull, who retired from the FBI in 2001, said he asked Campbell questions about whether he took bribes as mayor and engaged in illegal fund-raising activities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He passed,&#8221; Shull said.<\/p>\n<p>This summer, federal investigators have interviewed witnesses and lawyers representing witnesses who are cooperating in the corruption probe of Campbell&#8217;s administration. Federal authorities have obtained convictions of 10 people with business contracts or connections to City Hall or Campbell, who served as mayor from 1994 to 2002.<\/p>\n<p>A federal grand jury continues to hear testimony and weigh evidence, and lawyers familiar with the investigation say prosecutors are nearing a decision on whether to seek an indictment against the former mayor.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of the polygraph is further indication that Campbell&#8217;s defense team believes a decision is imminent. It also shows how aggressive Campbell&#8217;s lawyers will be in combating any possible charges.<\/p>\n<p>This wasn&#8217;t the first time that Campbell has taken a polygraph in an effort to clear his name. In 1993, when he was a city councilman, Campbell announced he had passed one after a concessionaire at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport claimed Campbell had accepted bribes.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen whether the results of Friday&#8217;s polygraph will ever be heard by a federal jury if the former mayor is indicted.<\/p>\n<p>In his exam, Shull said he asked Campbell the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Did you ever take any official action in exchange for campaign contributions, cash, gifts or other remuneration?<\/li>\n<li>Did you receive anything of value in exchange for taking any official action as mayor?<\/li>\n<li>Did you know of or did you participate in any illegal fund-raising activity in connection with your mayoral races?<\/li>\n<li>In connection with your races for mayor, were you aware of any illegal fund-raising activity?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Campbell answered, &#8220;No,&#8221; to all the questions, Shull said, adding that his analysis showed &#8220;no deception.&#8221; The examiner said the only other possible results are &#8220;deception indicated&#8221; or &#8220;no opinion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shull said he had yet to generate a report of his examination. He also said he would allow another examiner to review the charts generated by Campbell&#8217;s polygraph. This is standard procedure and would be done by the end of the weekend, Shull said.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta lawyer Steve Sadow, one of Campbell&#8217;s defense attorneys, said the former mayor insisted that he take a polygraph and that the &#8220;hardest tester possible&#8221; give the examination.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The insistence of this polygraph was Bill Campbell&#8217;s and Bill Campbell&#8217;s alone,&#8221; Sadow said.<\/p>\n<p>Sadow also said that if federal prosecutors agree to allow Shull&#8217;s examination to be admitted into evidence ?if Campbell is ultimately charged and goes to trial ?&#8221;we&#8217;ll take [another] polygraph with any FBI polygraph examiner the government chooses.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Although polygraphs cannot be admitted into evidence in Georgia&#8217;s state courts, they can be admitted in federal court in limited circumstances, Atlanta criminal defense attorney Don Samuel said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never seen it successfully done without another party&#8217;s consent,&#8221; Samuel said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s possible, particularly if you allow yourself to be subjected to a polygraph administered by the government.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said he suspects the results of Campbell&#8217;s polygraph examination taken Friday will never be seen by a jury ?and Campbell&#8217;s defense team knows it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an attempt to poison the well, to make sure that it&#8217;s in the minds of potential jurors,&#8221; Porter said. &#8220;It&#8217;s good strategy. This also may be saber-rattling with the prosecution in an effort to head off the grand jury.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the 1993 Hartsfield airport corruption case, then-City Councilman Campbell announced he had passed a polygraph test administered in Texas to rebut accusations from a former airport concessionaire. Harold Echols, who owned one of the largest food-and-beverage operations at Hartsfield-jackson, had told federal investigators he paid bribes to Campbell.<\/p>\n<p>When he produced the results of his polygraph, Campbell called Echols&#8217; allegation an &#8220;outrageous lie.&#8221; The councilman was never charged in the airport corruption scandal and was later elected mayor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Rankin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: Facing the prospect of a federal corruption indictment, former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell took the offensive Friday with the announcement he had passed a polygraph examination. The examination, which cost Campbell $600, was administered Friday by a former director of the FBI&#8217;s polygraph unit who is now a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[524,525,438],"class_list":{"0":"post-4224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-polygraph","7":"tag-atlanta","8":"tag-bill-campbell","9":"tag-kendall-shull","10":"anons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4225,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4224\/revisions\/4225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}