TOPEKA, Kan. — A former police detective in Kansas who died in an apparent suicide as he was about to stand trial on civil rights violations for allegedly sexually assaulting and terrorizing vulnerable women for decades wasn’t supposed to have a gun while he was under house arrest.
Police found Roger Golubski dead on his back porch Monday morning after a neighbor reported hearing a gunshot, and there were no indications of foul play, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. The judge’s order allowing Golubski to be under house arrest said he could not “possess a firearm, destructive device, or other weapon.”
Golubski’s death - just as jury selection was to begin at the federal courthouse in Topeka - raised questions about why the 71-year-old wasn’t behind bars, and how a gun came to be at his home in Edwardsville, outside Kansas City, Kansas.
“We will look into how he obtained the firearm as a part of the death investigation,” said Melissa Underwood, a bureau spokeswoman.
Golubski, once a highly regarded detective in Kansas City, was charged in 2022 with six felony counts of violating the civil rights of women and girls. Prosecutors say he sexually abused them and sometimes threatened to throw them or their relatives in jail if they didn’t comply.
The trial was to focus on two women. One said Golubski began sexually abusing her when she was in middle school. The other said he began abusing her after her twin sons were arrested. Prosecutors said seven other women were planning to testify that Golubski abused or harassed them as well. Advocates for the women believe there are other victims who have either died or are afraid to come forward.
Prosecutors say that Golubski, who was white, victimized Black women and girls in some of Kansas City’s poorest neighborhoods.
Golubski’s prosecution followed hundreds of abuse cases across the country where officers lost their badges after allegations of sexual assault.
After Golubski’s death, the judge dismissed the case at the request of prosecutors.
Prosecutors wanted Golubski jailed almost immediately. They asked to have him taken into custody two days after a federal grand jury indicted him in September 2022.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Rachel Schwartz rejected their request, concluding that while the allegations were “shocking,” Golubski was not the risk he was when the alleged abuse occurred years ago.
An attorney for Golubski described him as “sick and infirm,” saying he needed medical care for diabetes and to recover from quintuple bypass heart surgery. Golubski was undergoing kidney dialysis three times a week, and his trial was scheduled around those treatments.
Golubski’s accusers believe he had too much freedom under house arrest. Some of them were especially angry after they saw video of him at a Culver’s restaurant following a medical appointment in January. Schwartz tightened conditions on Golubski’s house arrest after that, but didn’t order him detained.
“The perception of people, rightly or wrongly, and regardless of the law, is that had they been in front of the court under similar circumstances, they probably would have been detained,” Cheryl Pilate, an attorney for some of Golubski’s accusers, said Tuesday.
Barry Grissom, who served as the top federal prosecutor in Kansas from 2010 to 2016, said Golubski’s longtime ties to the Kansas City area - something cited by the magistrate - argued against detention. Schwartz ordered Golubski to stay at home except for religious services and medical care. He was not allowed to get a passport.
“He hadn’t been found guilty - you know, it hadn’t been proved - so he still, like anybody, was presumed innocent,” Grissom said.
That’s unclear.
Sean O’Brien, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor, said officers would have searched Golubski’s home when his house arrest started, but added that “it’s not like they were surveilling his house 24/7.”
“But, you know, once he’s there - you know, people coming and going - anybody could have brought a gun to him or maybe the search wasn’t that thorough,” O’Brien said.
Golubski worked for decades for the Kansas City police department before retiring from there in 2010. He then worked for the Edwardsville police, leaving that department in 2016.
Edwardsville Chief Rance Quinn said in an email Tuesday that the department issues firearms to its officers and those in good standing are allowed to store them outside the department. The firearm can become a gift to an employee who retires, but Golubski did not get such a gift upon leaving in 2016, Quinn said.
Quinn said none of the department’s firearms were missing Monday morning and that “the firearm found on scene was not the make/model of firearm used by the Edwardsville PD.”
In Kansas City, police officers buy the firearms they’ll use on duty from a list of approved weapons and, if they cover the cost themselves, keep them after leaving the department, said spokesperson Nancy Chartrand. It was not immediately clear whether Golubski did that.
Christopher Joseph, Golubski’s lead attorney, said in an email Tuesday that he’d expected to meet Golubski in Topeka on Monday morning and go to the courthouse, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Golubski’s home in Edwardsville. Golubski hadn’t skipped a court appearance before Monday.
“I was in regular contact with Roger, including over the weekend,” Joseph said. “I saw no warning signs. His defense team was confident about the prospect of acquittal.”
Joseph said Golubski himself did not believe he could get a fair trial because of media coverage of his case and that he only learned Monday morning that Golubski was despondent over that coverage.
“Roger’s death should not be considered an admission of guilt,” Joseph said. “Instead, it should be a warning about the power of the media to pick a narrative and present it as truth.”
Golubski was at the center of a string of lawsuits and criminal allegations that led the Wyandotte County prosecutor’s office to begin a $1.7 million effort to reexamine cases he worked on during his 35 years on the force.
One double murder case Golubski investigated resulted in the exoneration of a man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 23 years, and government payments totaling $14 million to the man. A criminal justice organization run by rapper Jay-Z is suing to obtain police records.
Pilate said only a small subset of Golubski’s victims were willing to come forward and that his trial would have represented “just a first step toward accountability” for local police and government officials.
“And then when the time finally arrived for accountability, it was yanked away from them,” she said.
Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri.
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