The jury at the federal trial of former Kansas City, Kansas, Police Detective Roger Golubski will hear from seven women about how their alleged sexual assaults were similar to the two other women whose civil rights Golubski is charged with violating.
In a ruling that sets the scope of the trial, U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse ruled Wednesday that federal prosecutors can use the testimony of seven women — named and numbered as “other victims” or “O.V.” 1-7 — to make their case against Golubski. He is charged with depriving two individuals of their civil rights through sexual assault, kidnapping and attempted kidnapping.
But Crouse rejected prosecutors’ request that he set a trial date for a case that has been pending since Golubski was first arrested in September 2022. Prosecutors wanted the trial to begin in mid-September. Crouse said he will make a determination at the next status hearing on July 10.
Prosecutors want to use the other victims' testimony under two federal rules that allow them to show evidence of other offenses relevant to their case, potentially showing a pattern. The previous alleged assaults show Golubski used his law enforcement status to target and exploit many vulnerable Black women for decades without being held to account, prosecutors say.
O.V.s 1-5 alleged Golubski assaulted them; O.V. 6 and O.V. 7 say he attempted to attack them. Crouse ruled that all of their stories are relevant because they are alike.
“Each involve nearly the same alleged set of forced sex acts and were perpetrated using the same set of tactics: employment of information only a police officer would know to construct an offer of aid to a vulnerable victim, seclusion of the victim, use of violence, similar threats of death or imprisonment of a family member, and follow-up visits to ensure silence,” the judge wrote.
“And each of the victims fit a certain profile: a Black woman made vulnerable by her or her family members’ interactions with the criminal justice system within the community where Golubski served."
Golubski's attorney fought the inclusion of the seven women, saying they were bent on “simply smearing Golubski’s character.”
During a February 22 hearing in federal court in Topeka, Chris Joseph, Golubski’s attorney, said the women differed in age and there was no corroborating evidence, like medical records or police reports.
He compared the cases to those of comedian Bill Cosby, who has been accused of rape and sexual assault by more than 60 women.
Cosby’s pattern appeared to be “drug, rape; drug, rape,” Joseph said. “This one is different,” Joseph said of Golubski’s case. “(The women’s claims are) all just very different.”
Joseph predicted that allowing testimony from O.V.s 1-5 would amount to five mini-rape trials, would take too much time, and that he would have to spend a great deal of time and effort investigating all of their claims.
Tara Aliison, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said the women couldn’t report their assaults to police because they were scared, since Golubski had warned them that he would hurt them or their family members if they reported them.
Golubski singled out Black women in vulnerable positions, knowing “he could get away with this,” and showed the same pattern every time, she said.
“It's the same exact plan,” Allison said, “woman after woman after woman.”
