Source: Edwardsville Police Department
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A corrupt ex-police officer accused of crimes that even the word “horrific” seems like an understatement for has escaped accountability by taking his own life just before his trial was set to start.
According to the Kansas City Star, ex-Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski was facing six felony counts related to alleged crimes he committed during the 1990s and early 2000s. Those crimes include the repeated rapes of two Black women, one of whom was 13 when the sexual assaults allegedly began. Golubski, 71, was also accused of coercing some of his accusers to implicate Black men in crimes they did not commit, sending those men to prison for years. If all that wasn’t enough, Golubski, who served as a police officer from 1975 to 2010, is accused of protecting a notorious drug kingpin who was running an underage sex trafficking ring in Kansas City.
Jury selection for Golubski’s trial was set to start Monday, but he never showed up to court. Prosecutors requested an arrest warrant, only to find out shortly after that there was no point as investigators had eventually discovered the defendant’s body with a single gunshot wound to the head. U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed the case after Golubski’s death was confirmed.
“I guess that’s what happens to people who do all the wrong stuff they do,” one of his accusers, Ophelia Williams, told the Star. “He didn’t want to face the facts, so he decided to kill himself.”
Williams isn’t the only victim who has been denied a chance to tell her story in front of a jury during a public trial. In fact, as many as nine women were set to testify that Golubski raped, stalked or attempted to assault them.
Golubski maintained his innocence for years, but the details of the allegations against him paint him as the monster he likely was.
From the Star:
One of the victims, identified in court papers as S.K., claims the former detective first lured her into his patrol car by telling her she was a witness to a crime. He is accused of raping her on occasions between 1998 and 2001, and threatening to kill her or her grandmother if she failed to adhere to his demands.
The second victim, Williams, who has shared her allegations against Golubski publicly, said Golubski first raped her in 1999, beginning shortly after her teenage sons were arrested and charged in a homicide case that Golubski investigated.
The allegations raised by the women first came to light in civil court through a lawsuit brought by Lamonte McIntyre, who contended Golubski framed him for a 1994 double murder. Lawyers for McIntyre and his mother, Rose, said in court filings that Golubski victimized, assaulted or harassed more than 70 women. In 2017, McIntyre was exonerated and released from prison, following 23 years of wrongful incarceration.
“This is not justice,” said McIntyre, who had flown from Arizona to Kansas to see Golubski face trial in Topeka. “Justice is facing your accusers. If you commit a crime against the society that you are a part of, justice is facing that society. Him killing himself is not justice. That’s him avoiding it.
Federal prosecutors allege Golubski also served as a protector of feared drug kingpin Cecil Brooks. The former detective is one of four — alongside Brooks and associates LeMark Roberson and Richard “Bone” Robinson — accused of running an underage sex trafficking ring out of an apartment complex at Delavan Avenue and 26th Street. Prosecutors allege the girls were held at the apartment complex “in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude” and used “like chattel.”
As a detective, Golubski allegedly protected Brooks and the others from police investigation as they trafficked and raped the girls.
Golubski’s death is far from justice. Ultimately, all he did was close a case with many unanswered questions, including what happens to the other Kansas City police officers who allegedly witnessed his sexual abuse and did nothing to stop it; what happens to officers of the court who also are accused of aiding Golubski in his criminality and shielding him from justice; what happens with the Black men he has put in prison for crimes they may not have committed, and what about all of his other potential victims?
It seems this is more than just a story about a corrupt cop who committed unspeakable crimes and then killed himself rather than face justice. This is yet another story about the corruption, racism and cops protecting cops that permeate our “justice” system.
SEE ALSO:
Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Kansas City Cops Accused Of Stalking, Raping And Abusing Black People
Judge Shows Mercy For Ex-Cop Who Terrorized Black Women For Decades
