Ex-cop Golubski caught stopping for lunch in KCK. Prosecutors ask judge to jail him | Opinion
From the moment that former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski was allowed to stay on home detention, instead of being sent to jail pending trial, the women who say he raped them have been terrified that he’d use that relative freedom to do what he has always done, which is whatever he pleased. He’d no more follow the rules now, they said, than he had during his 35 years on the force.
Unfortunately, they were right: Photos and a video time-stamped this Jan. 23 at 12:30 p.m. show him stopping for lunch at the Culver’s in the Legends shopping center in KCK.
As a result, prosecutors on Monday asked the court to revoke the privilege of letting him sleep in his own bed.
Now, based on this evidence that he is not abiding even by the generous terms of his pretrial release, they are asking the judge to send him to jail, where he should have been all along.
So much for the 24/7 electronic monitoring that victims have been assured would prevent any such outings.
You know, just like it was supposed to but did not prevent his co-defendant in the sex trafficking charge against him, convicted drug kingpin Cecil Brooks, from going out on the town when he was on house arrest while on compassionate COVID release: Prosecutors have since acknowledged in court that yes, Brooks slipped his ankle bracelet, though they couldn’t say how often.
Golubski, who is 71, was already getting special treatment, supposedly because he’s so deathly deep into renal failure.
In fact, the man has so much room to roam that he could even have stopped for that lunch if he had bothered to ask permission first, but what fun would that be, I guess. And how many other times has he violated the terms of his release? How many times that we don’t know about because no one happened to catch it on video?
Conditions, consequences made clear to defendant
“The Court made clear that the conditions would be strictly enforced and ensured that the defendant understood both the conditions and the consequences he would face if he violated them,” prosecutors said in the motion asking the court to send him straight to jail. “On January 23, 2024, the defendant flaunted those conditions and violated this Court’s trust, traveling to Culver’s restaurant near Village Parkway in Kansas City, Kansas, to get lunch with the woman into whose custody the Court released him. Accordingly, the government respectfully moves this Court to revoke the defendant’s pretrial release.”
The original order restricting his movements says, “You are restricted to your residence at all times except for employment; education; religious services; medical, substance abuse, or mental health treatment; attorney visits; court appearances; court-ordered obligations; or other activities approved in advance by the pretrial services office or supervising officer.”
I haven’t heard of him hanging out in any churches, which would be allowed, but this is not the first time victims have passed around what they saw as photographic proof that he was not abiding by terms of his pretrial release.
He told the probation officer in charge of monitoring his movements that he was coming from a doctor’s appointment when he stopped for lunch because his blood sugar was low.
He was only at the doctor’s for an hour and 15 minutes, so this must not have been one of the six-hour dialysis sessions that his attorney Chris Joseph said recently in court that he gets three times a week.
He quickly left the restaurant, the motion says, after “a concerned citizen” spotted him and started shooting video of him.
According to the motion filed on Monday, “The probation officer also explained that she had informed the defendant that he is to go straight to and home from his medical appointments … The government asked whether the defendant self-reported his stop or provided his explanation” about having low blood sugar “only when confronted about it; as of the date of this filing, the government has not received an answer from probation.”
Great, so another law enforcement official in on another cover-up.
‘Repeated abuse of his own authority’
“A lunch-stop that might for a different defendant constitute a minor violation,” prosecutors said in the motion, “is for this defendant — who is charged with prolonged, extensive, and extremely violent crimes resulting from his repeated abuse of his own authority and his disdain for anyone else’s — a reflection of the defendant’s flagrant disregard of an order that this Court entered with strict conditions, and with strict warnings of the consequences of any such breach.
“The defendant, when caught violating the terms of his release, appears to have compounded his offense by offering a false explanation to his probation officer. If the defendant had truly had a diabetic emergency on his way home from the doctor’s office, he would have needed food immediately and would presumably have stopped at a convenience store and bought the first thing he saw or driven the ten minutes to his home rather than prolonging his drive home by 35 minutes and standing at a lunch counter waiting for a meal. … The defendant’s actions here — both in wandering off to a restaurant simply because he wanted to, despite this Court’s order, and in apparently lying afterward to cover up his violation — are in keeping with his conduct over decades in which he has flouted the rules while remaining confident that he can do as he pleases and not be held accountable.”
This is not some other defendant, the motion said: This one, it reminded the court, is “a former detective with 35 years’ tenure in the Kansas City Kansas Police Department (KCKPD), is charged in one case with abusing his law enforcement authority to brutally and repeatedly sexually assault two victims, including a minor, and is charged in a second case with participating in and facilitating an extensive sex-trafficking ring that targeted numerous young women, including a minor.”
In the motion, federal prosecutors say that if the court won’t send him to jail, then they should at least further limit his movement, and change his home detention to a true house arrest.
That’s not good enough, especially with the probation officer who is supposed to be monitoring him but seems to have let him slide still doing what his colleagues have always done.
Because this incident really is just a microcosm of the way that the law enforcement community always looked the other way where he is concerned.
Let’s hope this embarrassment at least ends the fiction that he can be trusted now that he’s older and sicker.
This story was originally published February 26, 2024 at 3:29 PM.
