Shocking claims against former top officer lift lid on US sexual abuse scandal

It is a scandal that has shocked many beyond the borders of Kansas City, where a senior white policeman allegedly carried out a reign of terror in which he brutally abused and sexually assaulted vulnerable Black women.

An appalling set of allegations against former Kansas City, Kansas police department detective Roger Golubski has lifted the lid on a scheme where he is alleged to have protected local drug dealers in the midwestern city, who then allowed him to rape women forced to work as prostitutes.

Golubski, 69, spent 35 years in the police department and worked as a detective in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods. The federal government charged Golubski in September with six counts of sexual assault and in November charged him and three other men with conspiring to hold young women in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude, according to US justice department news releases.

Golubski, who faces life in prison if convicted, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The details that have emerged about the allegations against Golubski are shocking.

In 2017, Lamonte McIntyre, a Black man arrested at age 17, was exonerated and released from prison after serving 23 years for a double murder he did not commit. McIntyre and his mother filed a lawsuit in 2018 against Wyandotte county alleging Golubski framed him because his mother rejected his sexual advances and that the county was responsible.

The lawsuit included the initials of 73 women that Golubski allegedly victimized, according to the Washington Post. Earlier this year, the county agreed to pay McIntyre and his mother $12.5m (£10m) as part of a settlement.

Ophelia Williams, a 60-year-old Black woman, alleges that Golubski raped her in 1999. She was living in Kansas City with her four children when police arrested her 14-year-old twin sons over a double homicide. After other officers walked outside her home, Golubski stayed inside with Williams and complimented her legs, she said.

He returned days later, she said, and raped her again.

After the first incident, Williams said she told him she would call the police.

She did not report the crime.

But there are divisions in how best to deal with its impact and aftermath. The director of an organization that helps people who were wrongfully convicted and a Kansas district attorney agree there is a need to investigate the trove of cases, but the two attorneys disagree about the best way to achieve justice on behalf of the alleged victims.

She said the way to hold Golubski and the police department accountable was for the justice department to conduct an independent review.

If not, local Black residents who say Golubski preyed on them could conclude that the local government and criminal justice system have again failed them.

To best address the alleged corruption, Rojo Bushnell said, the federal government should conduct a pattern or practice investigation, which examines whether there was systemic misconduct rather than isolated wrongdoing.

While running for mayor in 2021, Tyrone Garner told the Kansas City Star he would urge the federal government to investigate the police department.

The investigation involves digitally scanning about 4,000 boxes, each containing about 20 files, which could take 18 months, Dupree said. His office will review the cases throughout the process, he said.

Meanwhile, Williams said she believed her sons, who remain incarcerated, will be released from prison for a crime she said they did not commit.

Five years ago, Williams suffered a major heart attack, which makes it difficult for her to talk and breathe.