used the results of a polygraph "test" to clear one of his deputies of involvement in his wife's alleged embezzlement from a local bank:
http://web.herald-zeitung.com/story.lasso?wcd=13626 Sgt. Limmer passes polygraph test
By Leigh Jones
The Herald-Zeitung
Published August 18, 2005
Comal County deputy sheriff Sgt. Jimmy Limmer passed the polygraph test he took Wednesday to prove he knew nothing about his wife’s alleged involvement in embezzlements at First Commercial Bank.
Sheriff Bob Holder told the Herald-Zeitung he was elated.
“We know he is a man of integrity, and we knew it all along,” he said. “We just had to prove it. He’s now clear.”
The questions Limmer answered during the test were designed to find out what he knew about his wife, Lynn’s, situation July 1, well before she resigned from the bank July 19.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” Holder said. “Jimmy still has a tough road ahead of him, but all we can do is be here for him.”
With Limmer’s polygraph behind them, the sheriff said his department was through with its involvement in the case.
“If any local law enforcement agency is involved, and I don’t know that it will be, it would be the New Braunfels Police Department,” Holder said.
District Attorney Dib Waldrip declined to say whether he would bring in an outside law enforcement agency to help with his investigation, but the Texas Rangers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation both deal with white-collar crime.
Waldrip said last week he expected the bank to complete its internal investigation at the end of this week or early next week.
Once bank officials provide him with documentation from their investigation, he will begin his own examination of the data.
Bank officials first discovered they had a problem after a customer notified them of unusual transactions on his account.
Their own investigation identified fewer than 10 accounts with similar instances of missing funds.
The bank already has notified each ac-count holder and re-funded the money.
Shortly before Holder an-nounced Limmer would take the polygraph this week, New Braunfels Police Department officers began looking into his wife’s involvement in last year’s County Court-at-Law No. 2 election.
Lynn Limmer served as campaign treasurer for Assistant District Attorney Joe Soane’s unsuccessful bid for the new court position.
NBPD Detective Robert Parchman reviewed Soane’s campaign finance reports last week at the Comal County Courthouse.
Both Lynn and Jimmy Limmer contributed $100 each in cash to the campaign.
Despite the campaign’s connection with Limmer and First Commercial Bank, where the account was registered, Waldrip said he did not suspect Soane of any illegal activity.
I think that it is a dereliction of duty for any public official to close out an internal investigation based on the results of a polygraph "test."
Sheriff Bob Holder has attached to the polygraph a diagnostic value that it simply does not have. Polygraphy has no scientific basis, and Holder's prior expectation that his deputy would pass ("We know he is a man of integrity, and we knew it all along") may very well have influenced the outcome: no doubt the polygrapher knew full well what the desired and expected outcome was. It appears that the good sheriff was more interested in covering his ass than in uncovering potential corruption in his office.
If the deputy were indeed complicit in his wife's alleged embezzlement, he could have passed the polygraph using simple countermeasures that polygraphers have no proven ability to detect.
if he "failed" the "test." It is morally wrong for anyone to lose a job based on the results of such a bogus test, and the sheriff's public posturing was highly inappropriate.
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Thumbs Down to Comal County, TX Sheriff Bob Holder (Read 7189 times)
