Judge releases ex-KCK detective Roger Golubski from detention, citing health concerns
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Allegations against former KCK cop Roger Golubski
The Star has reported extensively on former Kansas City, Kansas, detective Roger Golubski and allegations that he victimized Black women during his years on the force.
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A judge released former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski from detention Monday, citing his serious health issues and saying he is not alleged to have committed crimes in recent years.
Golubski will be under location monitoring technology and restrained to his home. He must not violate laws, possess a gun or contact any witnesses or victims, Magistrate Judge Rachel Schwartz said in announcing her decision.
Golubski, 69, was charged with six counts of depriving the civil rights of a woman and a young teenager in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. The former officer, who retired in 2010 as a captain, is accused of sexually abusing and kidnapping them separately from 1998 to 2002.
He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, Golubski faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
In a motion filed Friday, prosecutors argued Golubski must be detained because he is too dangerous and kept tabs on his victims, saying there was no way to ensure the safety of others if he were released.
Tom Lemon, Golubski’s court-appointed defense attorney, advised the judge of concerns about Golubski’s physical health, suggesting the court should take those factors into account while weighing the possibility of detaining him until trial.
Golubski has renal failure that requires dialysis every other day and has been told he would die if he missed his needed medication, Lemon told the judge. Golubski also underwent quintuple bypass surgery earlier this year, he said.
Prosecutors said they acknowledged Golubski’s health problems, but contended they could be accommodated behind bars. Other detainees, prosecutors said, have received insulin treatment.
The judge’s decision outraged activists in the courtroom Monday, including a woman who said she was stalked by Golubski.
Lamonte McIntyre, an innocent man who alleges Golubski framed him for a double homicide, got up in the middle of the hearing and left.
Prosecutors sought to keep Golubski detained because his assaults were allegedly violent. He punched and choked his middle-school aged victim, prosecutors said, and once allegedly pointed his gun at her feet, saying, “I can make you dance.”
And, prosecutors said, Golubski’s threats were “nothing short of horrific.” Long before his arrest, he threatened to kill his alleged victims if they told on him, according to the FBI.
“Before the defendant was ever charged with an offense carrying a potential sentence of life imprisonment — indeed, before charges were even on the horizon for the defendant — the defendant threatened to kill a grandmother, to put a victim in the morgue, and to kill victims or have victims killed and to ensure that their bodies were never found, if his victims reported him,” prosecutors wrote.
In the Friday filing, prosecutors also revealed seven other women accused Golubski of cornering and threatening them, sometimes displaying his police badge and gun, from the 1980s until as recently as 2004. Some of them also said Golubski raped them.
“They will believe me before they will ever (expletive) believe you,” the then-officer allegedly said.
After Golubski was arrested, some of the victim’s lawyers told prosecutors that Thursday “was the first day that any of them have felt any degree of safety in the last three decades.”
But the judge said Monday that prosecutors had not met their burden to keep Golubski detained, which she described as high.
Schwartz said she knew Golubski’s alleged crimes have been widely covered in the media, but that her decision was based on what prosecutors have alleged in court. She also said probation officials had recommended that Golubski be released under certain conditions. While Schwartz finds the allegations “shocking,” she said the former cop poses less of a risk today than he did 20 years ago.
Lemon, his attorney, argued that in addition to his health issues, Golubski did not attempt to flee Wyandotte County, where he has lived his entire life, after egregious allegations surfaced against him in 2016 in McIntyre’s case.
After the hearing, Niko Quinn called Golubski “an animal” and said the then-officer stalked her from 1994 to 2010. Golubski, she said, also threatened to take away her children if she did not wrongly testify against McIntyre during his case.
“My life has been ruined,” Quinn told reporters.
Janice Witt, of Kansas City, Kansas, said one of her late relatives was a Golubski victim. She did not want to see him released.
“These woman have been complaining for years, my entire life,” she said, later adding: “All of those women, who were complaining, including my cousin, who were saying, ‘the police are raping me, the police are raping me,’ were ignored.”
Federal authorities continue to investigate other possible crimes committed by Golubski. His next court appearance, a status conference, is set for Oct. 12.
This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 4:40 PM.
