KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – A white Kansas police officer accused of beating black women and girls and threatening those who tried to fight him is set to go on trial, part of a series of lawsuits tied to decades of abuse allegations. .
Prosecutors say women living in poor neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kansas, fear that if they cross paths with Roger Golubski, he would want to sexually assault them and threaten to harm or jail their relatives. He is charged with six counts of violating women’s rights, and jury selection in his trial begins Monday in federal court in Topeka.
The case has angered the community and deepened distrust of law enforcement, which is often seen as overburdened in predominantly black communities.
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Golubski, now 71, is accused of sexually abusing one woman first when she was a child and another after her sons were arrested. If a jury convicts him, he could die in prison.
The trial is the latest in a series of criminal charges and indictments that have prompted the district attorney’s office to launch a $1.7 million effort to re-examine Golubski’s 35 years in the military. Another double-murder case investigated by Golubski has already resulted in an acquittal, and an organization led by rapper Jay-Z is suing to obtain police records.
Golubski has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney said in court that it was a “manufactured incentive” by his accusers. But prosecutors said that, along with the two women whose accounts are at the heart of the case, seven others will testify that Golubski molested or molested them.
“Every time I look back, I’m looking,” said Jermeka Hobbs, who sued Golubski and is not a witness in the trial. having sex for fear that he might drive her away from drugs.
The detective is busy going around poor neighborhoods
Other officials once respected Golubski for his ability to solve crimes, and he rose to the rank of chief of Kansas City, Kansas, before leaving in 2010 to serve in the city’s police department for another six years. His former friend worked as a police chief.
Golubski now doesn’t look like the powerful boss he used to be. He is in custody and undergoing kidney dialysis three times a week. This will limit his trial to Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
His attorney, Chris Joseph, said in a statement that some of the charges against Golubski are 20 to 30 years old, adding, “In a public filing, the prosecutor acknowledged that the verdict will change the credibility of his accusers.”
But Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion, a New Jersey nonprofit working to exonerate innocent people, described Golubski in court as “the dirtiest cop I’ve ever met.”
Golubski’s stories continued to be whispered about in the suburbs of Kansas City’s former cattle ranches in part because of the extreme poverty of the area with some high-rise buildings. Another area where Golubski worked was part of Kansas’ second-poorest zip code.
Crime was rampant there, as were drug dealers and prostitutes, said Max Seifert, a former Kansas City, Kansas, police officer who graduated from police academy with Golubski in 1975.
A senior official: ‘Boys will be boys of things’
Seifert said police misconduct is allowed in the department. He explained how informants and Golubski’s ex-wife complained that Golubski was soliciting prostitutes. Golubski was also caught having sex with another woman in his office, he said.
“It was just boys doing boys’ things,” said Seifert, who was forced into early retirement for refusing to cover up the 2003 beating of a driver by a federal agent.
McCloskey said in an interview that Golubski had women “at his mercy.”
Golubski’s inquiry is based on the story of Lamonte McIntyre, who began writing for McCloskey’s nonprofits nearly two decades ago.
McIntyre was just 17 years old in 1994 when he was arrested and charged with two murders, within hours of the crime. He had an alibi; there is no real evidence linking him to the murder; and an eyewitness believed that the killer was under a drug dealer. Golubski and the dealer have since been charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault.
An eyewitness only testified that McIntyre was the killer after Golubski and a lawyer who had been denied access to her children, charged.
McIntyre’s mother said in a 2014 affidavit that she wonders if her refusal to offer sex to Golubski made her want her son back.
“He, like a lot of people in the community, just saw the police as having all the power,” said Cheryl Pilate, a lawyer who helped free McIntyre in 2017.
In 2022, the local government agreed to pay McIntyre and his mother $12 million to settle the case after Golubski invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent 555 times. The state also paid McIntyre $1 million.
“That’s the thread that gave people courage,” said Lindsay Runnels, who serves on the board of the Midwest Innocence Project.
The women say they were threatened and ridiculed
Prosecutors say Golubski drove one of the women at the center of their case to a cemetery and told her to look for her grave. He raped her several times, starting when she had just finished school, causing her to have an abortion, court documents say.
At one point, prosecutors say, he forced her to crawl on the ground with a dog tied around her neck in a remote area near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. With no one around, he is accused of singing, “Down by the river, he said hank a pank; Where they can’t find him until he smells.
Golubski identified himself to Ophelia Williams, another woman at the center of the case, by admiring her legs and nightgown as police searched her home, prosecutors said.
Williams was scared at the time because his 14-year-old twins had just been arrested in a double murder. They later confessed to the crime so the police could release their 13-year-old brother, Williams said in a statement.
Golubski began sexually harassing her, alternating between threatening her and saying she could help her sons, according to court documents in the criminal case. The twins are now 40 years old and remain in prison. His guilt is part of the questions of their confession.
The Associated Press doesn’t usually report alleged rape victims, but Williams told her story publicly.
Williams said in his court that he had talked about filing a complaint. He says Golubski told him: “Tell me who, the police? I am the police.”
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.