Off and on I've been posting messages regarding my failed FBI polygraph and my attempt to get a retest. Like everyone else I've been arguing my polygraph was a farce, but I finally have actual proof. The agent who tested me in Manhattan over the summer is one Michael Templeton, the same person being sued as described in the article below. I feel much better now because 1) I have an alibi that this agent is unprofessional and more importantly 2) the FBI, continuing in the pathetic tradition of its injustices against Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell (1996 Olympic Park Bombing), David Hatfield (Anthrax) and who knows who else has ruined the life of the man described below. Why would anyone want to work for the FBI anyway?


Wrongly Jailed Student Sues Agent, Hotel

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

December 12, 2002, 9:06 PM EST

NEW YORK -- An Egyptian student wrongly jailed for a month as a suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks filed a $20 million lawsuit Thursday against the FBI agent who extracted his false confession. 

Abdallah Higazy, 31, also sued the Hilton hotel chain and a former security guard for telling authorities an aviation radio was found inside Higazy's hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center soon after the terrorist attacks. 

After he was taken into custody in December 2001, Higazy denied the radio was his, then "confessed" during a polygraph exam after Higazy said the agent threatened and intimidated him. 

He was charged with lying to investigators but cleared days later when the radio's true owner, a pilot, returned to the hotel to retrieve the device. 

"I want a public apology, a written apology," Higazy said Thursday. 

Former hotel security guard Ronald Ferry pleaded guilty to lying to investigators when he told them he found the radio, which is used to communicate with commercial airline pilots, in a safe inside Higazy's room. 

Higazy's lawyer, Robert Dunn, said they were considering filing additional claims against the federal government for its handling of the case. 

The suit claims Michael Templeton, the agent who administered the lie-detector test, coerced the false confession from Higazy by threatening to make his family's life in Egypt "a living hell." 

Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday. He has said previously he was "very proud of the way our office and the FBI conducted itself in the Higazy case." 

Kevin Donovan, the head of the FBI's New York office, noted a government inquiry cleared all the agents involved. 

A Hilton spokeswoman said the company would not comment. A call to Ferry's lawyer was not immediately returned. 


http://www.newsday.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=sns%2Dap%2Dattacks%2Da...

Interesting, I had my second polygraph given by this agent and he said that I failed on the drug sales question and omission in my application.  It is interesting because I know that I did not leave anything out and the issue that I failed on my first test was put on the table prior to the second test.  I went in with nothing to hide, I even told S.A. Templeton that I had visited this site and was aware of the controveresey surrounding his profession.  He claimed I failed the same two questions in each of the tests and told me that if I told him "something that I was holding back" that he could put me back in the chair and I would pass the exam.  I really wanted to believe him, but I had nothing else.  I had laid my "soul bare" to him prior to the exam.  He held fast to his story and I was shell shocked.  I thought that I would pass the exam after having but everything on the table, I could not believe that he told me I didn't.  I haven't gotten my results letter, so I am hoping that he was lying to me.

Dear Failed by M.T. Too,

I would keep requesting more exams.  The pre-screening polygraph is nothing but a roll of the dice. Anyone taking enough exams will randomly pass or fail eventually.

The government hates paperwork.  Your appeals will create paper work.  The more well written the appeal, the harder it is to deny regardless of previous results.  A polygraph without a confession is just that, a polygraph that cannot be used by reasonable people in a court of law without a lot of qualifiers (and hopefully an admission by the examiner that it is far enough from perfect that they could not use it like DNA or other forensic science that has known percentage of error).

Keep appealing.  Your $4.48 certified return receipt letter is well spent in trying to clear your name and reputation.  Make them prove via other means that you are "guilty" not just with polygraph interpretation (and that is what it is, interpretation, there is no science to it).

Regards.