{"id":62,"date":"2006-08-29T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2006-08-29T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=62"},"modified":"2021-02-11T07:21:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T12:21:34","slug":"michigan-state-police-polygrapher-who-wrongly-accused-innocent-woman-named","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/29\/michigan-state-police-polygrapher-who-wrongly-accused-innocent-woman-named\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State Police Polygrapher Who Wrongly Accused Innocent Woman Named"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>The Michigan State Police polygraph operator who <a title=\"Woman Who Failed Michigan State Police Polygraph Vindicated\" href=\"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=61\">falsely accused Lisa Hansen<\/a> 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:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Muskegon based public interest group <a title=\"Innocent!\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20061004223738\/http:\/\/www.aboutinnocent.org\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Innocent<\/a>, today called for a public apology from, reprimand and reassignment of a Michigan state police officer.<\/p>\n<p>Sgt. Ben Escalante of the Michigan State Police gave a lie detector test to Lisa Hanson [sic], age 25, of Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n<p>The test was administered at Hanson&#8217;s request.<\/p>\n<p>Hanson had been wrongly accused of stealing a night deposit bag from her employer.<\/p>\n<p>Hanson stated that Sgt. Escalante accused her of the theft and lying while giving her the test.<\/p>\n<p>Hanson then failed the test.<\/p>\n<p>Hanson&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>The night deposit bag was later discovered by the bank where it had been dropped off.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Tjapkes is concerned that Escalante&#8217;s behavior does a disservice to polygraph operators who must be completely objective.<\/p>\n<p>INNOCENT often recommends that people claiming wrongful conviction take a polygraph test to support their case.<\/p>\n<p>A copy of the letter was also sent to Governor Jennifer Granholm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sgt. Escalante&#8217;s erroneous finding that Lisa Hansen was deceptive was not necessarily the result of any misconduct on his part. That an <a title=\"Forensic 'Lie Detection': Procedures Without Scientific Basis\" href=\"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/articles\/article-018.shtml\">invalid test<\/a> produced erroneous results should surprise no one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#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":[284],"class_list":{"0":"post-62","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-polygraph","7":"tag-benjamin-escalante","8":"anons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","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=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2639,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/2639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}