A man applying to for a job with the Chicago Police Department apparently accidentally admitted to his part in a kidnapping and sexual assault that occurred back in 2016, according to prosecutors.
Stephon Arnold, 30, and his brother, Sherrow Harris, 35, were arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sexual assault after Arnold admitted to the crimes while taking a polygraph test during his application process to join the CPD, according to WLS-TV.
It appears that when he was asked if he had any criminal history, Arnold admitted that he once kidnapped a woman and sexually assaulted her. After his admission, investigators pared up his details with that of an unsolved crime from 2016 and then arrested Arnold and his brother for the crime.
Investigators say that Arnold, his brother, and a cousin took two women to Woodfield Mall to look at Air Jordan 12 shoes. Harris allegedly suggested that the two women accompany him to his apartment, where he claimed to have shoes in their size stashed away.
But once they got the women to Harris’s apartment, the men allegedly bound the women, then sexually assaulted them.
The crime was reported in 2016, but the case was dropped when CPD officers were unable to gather enough evidence to prosecute at the time, officials say. That all changed after Arnold’s polygraph test admission.
Prosecutors then showed the victims from the nine-year-old crime a photo line-up and they reportedly identified Arnold, Harris, and a cousin.
Both Arnold and Harris are being held in the Cook County jail and have asked for court-appointed public defenders.
This was not the only time a pre-employment polygraph test revealed an applicant’s criminal history.
According to the Second City Cop blog, another would-be CPD applicant admitted to a robbery during his polygraph test.
A document posted on the blog shows that the applicant admitted to robbing a Dollar General store in 2017 by using his cell phone and claiming it was a gun.
It isn’t likely that the second applicant was prosecuted for his admitted crime, because the statute of limitations on simple robbery is three years. Unfortunately for Arnold and Harris, the statue of limitations for sexual assault is ten years.
The Chicago Police Department would not comment on the specific cases, but told ABC-7 that “The polygraph examination is an important component of the background process to determine an applicant’s eligibility for hire.”
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