How to Beat a Lie Detector: Man Taught Child Molesters and Law Officers

Chad Dixon fully admits he provided information to people on how to beat lie-detector tests.

Federal prosecutors say that included teaching deceptive techniques to child molesters, intelligence employees and law enforcement applicants.

On Friday, Dixon, a little league coach from Indiana with no prior criminal history, will be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in a case that could have wide implications nationwide.

“Properly understood, his crimes encompass inviting total strangers into a scheme to defraud and obstruct, and joining in their criminal enterprises,” prosecutors wrote in court papers, according to the McClatchy news service, which first broke the story.

“Dixon adopted a mercenary-like attitude towards the nation’s border security and the security of the nation’s secrets. He also acted with callous disregard for the most vulnerable in society – our children. . . . Dixon’s misconduct was purposeful, dangerous and it requires punishment.”

No it doesn’t, his attorney, Nina Ginsberg of Alexandria, replied in court papers.

“Like it or not,” Ginsberg wrote to the court, “providing polygraph countermeasures training, even to the most despicable among us, is not a crime.”

Dixon is not alone in providing such information. Numerous web sites that cover the same information exist. He is, though, believed to be the first person in the country charged with such crimes.

McClatchy reported in July that Dixon’s case was part of a broader federal effort to discourage possible criminals and spies from getting government jobs using polygraph countermeasures. 

Among the 100 or so people Dixon is accused of counseling are convicted sex offenders in the Washington area. He was arrested after he counseled undercover agents who told Dixon that they would use his techniques to cheat their tests for Customs and Border Protection jobs.

Dixon pled guilty last year to charges of obstruction and wire fraud. Those were related to people applying for federal jobs.

Ginsberg said only one sex offender told Dixon about an undisclosed crime, according to McClatchy. In that instance, she said, Dixon alerted probation officials about the 39-year-old from Carrollton, TX, who confessed to sexual molesting a minor while on probation.