When government psychologist Julio Rivera said recruit Desmond Crosley and three other police trainees were not psychologically fit for police work, the four took the department to court.

In preparing their case, the officers delved into the background of the man who for three years in the late 1970s evaluated recruits as well as officers under stress.

They made a shocking discovery: The man who called himself Julio Rivera was a fraud.

The real Julio Rivera was thousands of miles away, teaching psychology at Adelphi University in New York.

"I have heard reports that the man was an escaped mental patient," Professor Rivera says.

Rivera says he heard that the impostor was a black man from the South who managed to pose as a Cuban psychologist -- even though he could not speak Spanish.

The man was able to fool V.I. Health Department officials by presenting forged diplomas and credentials. And if, as Rivera suspects, he was an escaped mental patient, he had been on the receiving end of psychological services enough to know the jargon and talk the talk.

The impostor, whose real name remains a mystery to this day, was also able to fool University of the Virgin Islands officials, who hired him as a part-time psychology instructor.

While with the Health Department, the phony psychologist evaluated many officers who are still on the police force.

Trained psychologists point out that the impostor would have missed mental problems a real psychologist might have spotted.

The case of the phony psychologist highlights the slipshod manner in which those who help select and train police officers are chosen.

"It is conceivable that had this man not been discovered, many people totally unsuited for police work would be on the force," Rivera says. "That kind of thing is always worrisome."