A white Kansas police detective accused of sexually abusing Black women and girls— and terrorising any who tried to fight back — has died, according to prosecutors, as his trial begins Monday.
Prosecutors said female residents of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Kansas City, Kansas, were afraid that if they met Roger Golubski, he would demand sexual favours and threaten to injure or imprison their family members.
Golubski, 71, faced six felony counts of breaching women’s civil rights. However, he did not appear in court on Monday morning, when jury selection began. Prosecutors later verified in court that Golubski died. They did not explain how or when he died.
His lawyer, Christopher Joseph, stated that his client “was despondent about the media coverage.” He didn’t elaborate.
At the request of prosecutors, US District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed the case against Golubski. Joseph described the death as “truly unexpected.”
“I don’t know the details,” he told reporters as he walked out of the Topeka courtroom where jury selection was scheduled to begin.
The case has upset the community and fuelled long-standing fear of police enforcement, which is frequently perceived as more heavy-handed in predominantly Black neighbourhoods. The prosecution follows previous instances of similar abuse charges around the country, in which hundreds of officers have lost their badges due to sexual assault allegations.
Golubski was accused of sexually assaulting one lady when she was just a teenager, and another after her sons were incarcerated.
The trial was the latest in a series of lawsuits and criminal claims that prompted the county prosecutor’s office to launch a $1.7 million investigation into cases Golubski worked on during his 35 years on the force. One double murder case Golubski studied resulted in an exoneration, and a group led by musician Jay-Z is seeking to obtain police data.
Golubski has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney claims that lawsuits over the allegations are “inspiration for fabrication” by his accusers. However, prosecutors stated that, in addition to the two women whose stories are central to the criminal case, seven others would testify that Golubski assaulted or harassed them.
A veteran detective patrolling poor neighborhoods
Fellow officers had admired Golubski’s skill to clear cases, and he advanced to the level of captain in Kansas City, Kansas, before retiring in 2010 and working for a suburban police force for another six years. His former partner previously worked as a police chief.
Before his death, Golubski did not resemble the powerful officer he was. He was under home arrest and had kidney dialysis three times per week.
His attorney, Chris Joseph, stated in a statement that some of the charges against Golubski are 20 to 30 years old, adding, “In public filings, the prosecution has acknowledged that the verdict will turn entirely on the accusers’ credibility.”
But Jim McCloskey, head of Centurion, a New Jersey group trying to liberate innocent individuals, branded Golubski in a court hearing as the “dirtiest cop I’ve ever encountered.”
Stories about Golubski remained murmurs in the neighbourhoods surrounding Kansas City’s former cattle stockyards, owing to the terrible poverty of the area, where several homes are boarded up. One of the neighbourhoods where Golubski worked is in Kansas’ second poorest zip code.
Max Seifert, a former Kansas City, Kansas, police officer who graduated from the police academy with Golubski in 1975, noted that crime, as well as drug dealers and prostitutes, were abundant.
A fellow officer: ‘A boys will be boys type of thing’
Seifert stated that police wrongdoing was tolerated in the department. He revealed how informants and Golubski’s ex-wife said that he was soliciting prostitutes. Golubski was also found having sex with a lady in his office, he revealed.
“It’s kind of like a boys will be boys type thing,” said Seifert, who was forced into early retirement in 2003 after refusing to hide a federal agent’s beating of a driver.
McCloskey claimed in an interview that Golubski had women “at his mercy.”
The investigation into Golubski arises from the instance of Lamonte McIntyre, who began writing to McCloskey’s foundation about 20 years ago.
McIntyre was only 17 years old when he was caught and charged with a double homicide mere hours after the killings occurred. He had an alibi; there was no physical evidence linking him to the murders; and an eyewitness assumed the killer was an underling of a local drug dealer. Golubski and the dealer have since been indicted in a separate federal prosecution with conducting a violent sex trafficking business.
The eyewitness only testified that McIntyre was the murderer when Golubski and a now-disbarred lawyer threatened to take her children away, according to a complaint.
McIntyre’s mother stated in a 2014 affidavit that she wonders if her failure to offer Golubski regular sexual favours drove him to revenge against her son.
“She, like many people in the community, just viewed the police as all-powerful,” said Cheryl Pilate, an attorney who assisted with McIntyre’s release in 2017.
In 2022, the local government agreed to pay McIntyre and his mother $12.5 million to resolve a lawsuit stemming from a deposition in which Golubski exercised his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent 555 times. The state also paid McIntyre $1.5 million.
“That was the thread that gave people some courage,” said Lindsay Runnels, a Midwest Innocence Project board member.
Women claim they were threatened and mocked.
Prosecutors claim Golubski drove one of the women involved in their criminal case to a cemetery and told her to dig her own grave. According to court documents, he sexually molested her on multiple occasions beginning in middle school and resulting in a miscarriage.
According to prosecutors, he once forced her to crawl on the ground with a dog leash around her neck in a rural location near the junction of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. With no one present, he is accused of chanting, “Down by the river, said a hank a pank; Where they won’t find her until she stank.”
Prosecutors say Golubski introduced himself to Ophelia Williams, the other lady at the centre of the investigation, by admiring her legs and nightgown as police searched her home.
Williams was afraid at the moment because her 14-year-old twins had recently been arrested for double homicide. In a second complaint, Williams claimed that they eventually admitted to the crime in order for authorities to release their 13-year-old brother.
According to court documents in the criminal case, Golubski began sexually assaulting her while threatening her and stating he could help her sons. The twins are now 40 years old and still behind jail. She is involved in a litigation that calls into doubt their confessions.
The Associated Press does not usually name alleged victims of sexual assault, but Williams has shared her experience publicly.
Williams stated in her lawsuit that she had mentioned filing a complaint. She claims Golubski told her, “Report me to whom? The police?” “I’m the police.”