Man Who Trained Feds on How to Beat Polygraph Tests Heads to Prison

An Indiana man who charged federal employees and job applicants for training on how to beat lie detector tests was sentenced to eight months in prison on Friday.

Chad Dixon, 34, of Marion, Ind., charged customers up to $2,000 plus travel expenses to teach them how to subvert polygraph examinations used by government agencies in federal security background checks. Two federal contractors with Top Secret security clearances who worked for an intelligence agency and a law enforcement agency were among his customers.

“Dixon customized his trainings by asking each customer the purpose of their polygraph examination and the information they wanted to conceal from the government,” according to a press release from Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Dixon also trained nine convicted sex offenders required to take lie detector tests as part of their probation or parole. Two undercover agents posing as applicants for law enforcement jobs at the Customs and Border Protection agency received Dixon’s services. He told one, who posed as a drug user and former jailer who accepted bribes, to lie about her criminal activities and taught her how to beat the polygraph test. The other agent posed as a sex offender with ties to a drug cartel involved in murder, extortion and kidnapping. The undercover agent told Dixon that he gave his brother, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel, his U.S. passport to enter the country for criminal purposes. Dixon “told him not to reveal the information about his brother or the sexual contact with a minor,” the press release said.

Dixon pleaded guilty in December 2012 to wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding. In addition to his prison time, Dixon was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to give up $17,000 for his role in the scheme.

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