Women’s lawsuit accuses Kansas City, Kansas, of allowing police corruption to thrive for years

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Five women who say they were sexually assaulted or harassed by a former Kansas City, Kansas, detective filed a lawsuit Friday accusing the government of allowing police corruption to thrive for years.

The Kansas City Star reports that the federal lawsuit says the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, allowed its officers to “terrorize, abuse and violate” Black residents through a pattern of misconduct and assaults without being disciplined or investigated.

The government declined to comment because of the pending litigation, and a lawyer for former Detective Roger Golubski told the newspaper he couldn’t comment because he hadn’t read the lawsuit.

Golubski has been accused by federal prosecutors and civil rights groups of framing Black citizens and sexually harassing Black women and girls for years in Kansas City, Kansas.

He is currently on house arrest facing two federal indictments alleging he sexually assaulted and kidnapped a woman and a teenager between 1998 and 2002, and that he was part of a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls in Kansas City, Kansas, between 1996 and 1998.

Golubski has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The next hearing in the criminal cases is scheduled for Nov. 21, but no trial dates have been set.

Four of the five plaintiffs allege Golubski sexually assaulted or stalked them. One said the detective raped her in 1992 in the back seat of his unmarked police car.

The lawsuit says that Golubski mocked one of the women when she said she was going to file a complaint against him. Acoording to the lawsuit, Golubski replied, “Report me to who, the police? I am the police.”