A Former white police detective accused of sexually assaulting black women and girls in Kansas — and terrorizing those who tried to fight back — has died, prosecutors said as his trial was set to begin Monday.
Prosecutors say residents of impoverished neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kansas, feared that if they crossed paths with Roger Golubskihe demanded sexual favors and threatened to harm or imprison their loved ones.
Golubski, 71, faced six counts of violating women’s civil rights. But he did not appear in court Monday morning for the start of jury selection. Prosecutors later confirmed in court that Golubski had died. They did not say how or when he died. Law enforcement established a crime scene outside Golubski’s home Monday morning, CBS affiliate KCTV reported.
His lawyer, Christopher Joseph, said his client “was disheartened by the media coverage.” He did not specify.
U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed the charge against Golubski at the request of prosecutors. Joseph called the death “truly unexpected.”
“I don’t know the details,” he told reporters as he left the courtroom where jury selection was to begin.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
The case outraged the community and deepened historic distrust of law enforcement.
The accusation follows earlier reports of similar abuse allegations across the country, where hundreds of officers have lost their badges after allegations of sexual assault.
Golubski was accused of sexually assaulting one woman when she was barely a teenager and another after her sons were arrested.
About 50 people gathered outside the federal courthouse Monday morning, in freezing weather, to show support for the women who said they were victims of Golubski. They held signs that said: “Justice now!”
The trial is the latest in a series of lawsuits and criminal allegations that have led the county attorney’s office to launch a $1.7 million effort to re-examine cases Golubski worked on during his 35 years. years in the police force. A double murder case that Golubski once investigated resulted in an exoneration, and an organization led by rapper Jay-Z is filing suit to obtain police records.
Golubski had pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer said the prosecution of the allegations was “inspiration for the fabrication” of his accusers. But prosecutors said that besides the two women whose stories are at the heart of the criminal case, seven others would testify that Golubski abused or harassed them.
“Every time I turn around, I look,” said Jermeka Hobbs, who filed a separate complaint against Golubski and was not going to be a witness at trial. Her lawsuit says she was groomed to be one of “Golubski’s girls” and submitted to sexual advances, fearing he would arrest her on drug charges. “I think someone is after me. I have no peace at all.”
Veteran detective patrolling poor neighborhoods
Fellow officers once revered Golubski for his ability to solve cases, and he rose to the rank of captain in Kansas City before retiring in 2010 and then working on a suburban police force for six more years. His former partner served as police chief.
Before his death, Golubski was under house arrest and undergoing kidney dialysis treatments three times a week.
Joseph said in a statement that some of the allegations against Golubski date back 20 to 30 years, adding: “In public filings, the prosecution acknowledged that the verdict will depend entirely on the credibility of the accusers.”
Edwardsville Police Department via AP
But Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion, a New Jersey nonprofit that works to free innocent people, described Golubski during a court hearing as the “dirtiest cop I’ve ever met.”
Stories about Golubski remained whispers in neighborhoods near Kansas City’s former stockyards, in part because of the dire poverty of a place where some homes are boarded up. A neighborhood where Golubski worked is part of the second poorest ZIP code in Kansas.
Crime was plentiful there, as were drug dealers and prostitutes, said Max Seifert, a former Kansas City police officer who graduated from the police academy with Golubski in 1975.
Fellow officer: ‘A boy will be a boy kind of thing’
Seifert said police misconduct was tolerated in the department. He described how informants and Golubski’s ex-wife complained that Golubski was soliciting prostitutes. Golubski was also caught having sex with a woman in his office, he said.
“It’s kind of like boys being boys,” said Seifert, who was forced into early retirement for refusing to cover up the 2003 beating of a motorist by a federal agent.
McCloskey said in an interview that Golubski had the women “at his mercy.”
The Golubski investigation stems from case of Lamonte McIntyrewho began writing to McCloskey’s nonprofit nearly two decades ago.
McIntyre was just 17 years old in 1994 when he was arrested and charged with a double homicide, hours after the crimes. He had an alibi; no physical evidence linked him to the murders; and an eyewitness believed the killer was an underling of a local drug dealer. Golubski and the dealer have since been charged in a separate federal case with running a violent sex trafficking operation.
The eyewitness only said McIntyre was the killer after Golubski and a now-disbarred lawyer threatened to take her children away, she claimed in a lawsuit.
“I want to spend the rest of my life being happy” McIntyre told CBS News in 2018 after being released from prison. “I don’t want to be bitter. It takes away from me. I don’t have any more time to give.”
McIntyre’s mother said in a 2014 affidavit, she questioned whether her refusal to regularly provide sexual favors to Golubski prompted him to retaliate against her son.
“She, like many people in the community, viewed the police as all-powerful,” said Cheryl Pilate, a lawyer who helped free McIntyre in 2017.
In 2022, the local government agreed to pay $12.5 million to McIntyre and his mother to settle a lawsuit after a deposition in which Golubski invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent 555 times. The state also paid McIntyre $1.5 million.
“It’s the thread that gave people courage,” said Lindsay Runnels, who serves on the board of directors of the Midwest Innocence Project.
Women say they were threatened and mocked
Prosecutors say Golubski drove one of the women at the center of their criminal case to a cemetery and asked her to find a place to dig her own grave. He sexually assaulted her multiple times, starting when she was in middle school, which caused her to have a miscarriage, according to court documents.
Once, prosecutors say, he forced her to crawl on the ground with a dog leash around her neck in a secluded spot near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. With no one around, he is accused of chanting: “By the river, says a skein a pank; where they won’t find her as she stinks. »
Golubski introduced himself to Ophelia Williams, the other woman at the center of the case, by complimenting her legs and nightgown as police searched her home, prosecutors said.
Williams was terrified at the time because her 14-year-old twins had just been arrested for a double homicide. They eventually admitted to the crime so police would release their 13-year-old brother, Williams said in a separate lawsuit.
Golubski began sexually assaulting her, alternating between threatening her and claiming he could help his sons, according to court records in the criminal case. The twins are now 40 years old and remain behind bars. The trial she is part of calls their confessions into question.
The Associated Press generally does not name alleged victims of sexual assault, but Williams has told her story publicly.
Williams said in her lawsuit that she previously mentioned filing a complaint. She claims Golubski told her: “Report me to who, to the police?” I am the police. »
