Judge sets trial date for disgraced ex-KCKPD cop Roger Golubski in sexual assault case
Ex-Kansas City, Kansas, police captain Roger Golubski, a longtime homicide detective accused of using the power of his badge to extort and rape Black women, will stand trial in the first of his two criminal cases beginning in early December, a federal judge ordered Wednesday.
During an afternoon hearing in Topeka, U.S. District Court Judge Toby Crouse set Golubski’s sexual assault trial to begin Dec. 2. Hearings are expected to take place three days per week over roughly five weeks to accommodate Golubski’s health issues.
Golubski, 71, receives regular dialysis treatments and has been on house arrest since his indictment in September 2022.
Federal prosecutors allege Golubski, who is white, abused his power as a police officer to terrorize Black residents of Kansas City, Kansas with impunity for decades. He is accused of raping women he met while acting in his official capacity as a police officer, often threatening to fabricate criminal cases against their family members unless his sexual advances were received.
In the first of two federal cases, Golubski is accused of assaulting two victims starting in the late 1990s. One, identified in court documents as S.K., was between 13 and 14 years old at the time of the first alleged assault in 1998.
The other is Ophelia Williams, who has spoken publicly about encounters with Golubski that began roughly 25 years ago. She says Golubski forced her into sex acts on duty and in his squad car over the course of about a year while her teenage sons were being tried for murder.
Golubski faces six felony counts of deprivation of civil rights. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
In addition to details surfaced in criminal court, several women have come forward with accusations in civil cases.
Rose McIntyre, whose son Lamonte McIntyre was wrongly imprisoned for 23 years for a double murder he did not commit, accused Golubski of orchestrating a case against her son because she rejected him. Lamonte McIntyre was exonerated and a civil case against the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas settled in 2022 for $12.5 million.
In November, five more women filed another federal civil lawsuit against the Unified Government. Four of the five plaintiffs allege Golubski sexually assaulted or stalked them, including one who accuses the detective of raping her in the back seat of an unmarked police car. That case remains pending.
The setting of a trial date on Wednesday marked a development long anticipated by Golubski’s alleged victims. Some have openly questioned whether the former officer would ever stand trial given his age and health issues.
William Skepnek, an attorney representing Williams in a civil case involving Golubksi, said by phone Wednesday “Ophelia is finally going to have a chance to tell her story.”
“For Ophelia and these other women, it’s been decades coming,” Skepnek said. “And it’s great that their story is gonna get to be told to a jury, and the jury is gonna get to say what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Golubksi worked for Kansas City, Kansas, police from 1975 until 2010. The criminal case now set for trial is one of two he faces related to his conduct as a police officer.
In the second, Golubski is accused of conspiring to sex traffic underage girls between 1996 and 1998 with three other men, including a notorious drug kingpin, Cecil Brooks. Prosecutors allege Golubski protected criminals from police investigation as girls were raped and trafficked at an apartment complex at Delavan Avenue and 26th Street in Kansas City, Kansas.
A trial date in that case has yet to be scheduled.
