Don O'Brien of the Quincy, Illinois
Herald-Whig reports:
Quote:Trying to beat polygraph test costs Quincy business owner $2,000 fine
Posted: Apr 02, 2013 4:44 AM CEST Updated: Apr 02, 2013 5:56 AM CEST
By DON O'BRIEN
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
A Quincy business owner had his probation from a 2010 child pornography case revoked and was fined $2,000 Monday after he was found to have been taking a polygraph counter measures course.
Jeffrey K. Warner, 57, owner of Warner's Dry Cleaning, was sentenced to 30 months probation on Dec. 20, 2010 after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. While on probation, Warner paid a man $1,000 for information on how to manipulate polygraph tests.
Assistant State's Attorney Anita Rodriguez said Warner met with the man in Missouri while he was there for court-approved medical treatments. She said that polygraph tests are important tools in the treatment of sex offenders and that Warner had made any results of any polygraph tests given to him no good by obtaining the information.
Judge Robert Adrian found that Warner violated terms of his probation by meeting with the man when he was only allowed to go to Missouri for medical treatment.
"This is a significant violation of your probation," Adrian told Warner. "Obviously, you were trying to subvert the conditions of your probation."
Warner avoided jail time because of a medical issue. He had a double lung transplant surgery in May 2009.
"The nature of this violation is significant," Rodriguez said. "If this was anyone else, we would recommend a sentence to the Department of Corrections. But with Mr. Warner's medical history, it's not worth putting that expense on the state or on the county."
Rodriguez asked for a "significant fine" and suggested the $2,000 total.
Warner said he took the course because he "was afraid of the false test results." Reading from a written statement before Adrian made his decision, Warner said he had seen innocent people fail polygraphs when he worked in the retail industry.
Warner's attorney, Terry Anastas, asked that Adrian not send his client to prison.
"It's not appropriate to consider Mr. Warner for incarceration," Anastas said. "He is more susceptible to illness. No further probation is necessary. He has not offended while he has been on probation."
Adrian said that sending Warner to prison "would be a death sentence" and that a sentence of county jail time "would only set the county up for liability."
Warner must pay his fine within six months. The case originated on Oct. 28, 2008 when authorities said they received a tip about child porn being on his computer. The Illinois State Police Crime Lab assisted in the investigation. Information in the case was filed on Feb. 26, 2010, and Warner was arrested on March 8, 2010. He posted $1,000 bond that day and has been free since.
-- dobrien@whig.com/221-3370
I note that while the title of the article suggests that Warner attempted to beat the polygraph, the article doesn't actually document that he answered any relevant question untruthfully during the course of any polygraph examination.
This article raises a couple questions: would it have been a violation of probation had the countermeasure training taken place in Illinois instead of in Missouri?
And if, as averred by Assistant State's Attorney Anita Rodriguez, obtaining information about polygraphy makes polygraph results "no good," then is it not foolhardy to rely on polygraph results at all, considering that such information is freely available to anyone who seeks it on websites such as this one?
