Ex-KCK cop Roger Golubski remains on house detention after sex trafficking charges

Former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski remains on house arrest after he was indicted on new charges that accuse him of having helped run a violent sex trafficking operation.

Magistrate Judge Rachel Schwartz released Golubski, 69, from detention in September after his initial indictment on charges that accuse him of sexual assault and kidnapping. Prosecutors had asked that he be kept behind bars, arguing he was more dangerous today, but the judge sided with Golubski’s lawyer, who said he has renal failure that requires regular dialysis.

After the former cop made his first appearance Monday on the new charges, he was again released back to his Edwardsville home, where he remains under location monitoring.

One new condition has been added to Golubski’s pre-trial release: avoid contact with convicted drug kingpin Cecil Brooks, Richard “Bone” Robinson and LeMark Roberson — the alleged sex traffickers Golubski is accused of protecting in the 1990s.

Robinson and Roberson remain behind bars ahead of detention hearings scheduled for Thursday. In court filings so far, federal prosecutors have said they will seek to keep Robinson detained ahead of trial.

Roberson, 60, was arrested Monday by the FBI in Cleveland, where records show he has a listed address nearby. Robinson, 58, was arrested the same day by federal agents in Topeka.

Brooks, 60, remains incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. He has been behind bars since he pleaded guilty in 2009 to conspiring to distribute crack out of an apartment near Topeka High School, just blocks from the Kansas State Capitol.

Golubski was indicted in September on six federal counts that allege he sexually assaulted and kidnapped a woman and a teenager from 1998 to 2002, though prosecutors contend he stalked and raped additional victims.

The new indictment unsealed Monday accuses Brooks, Robinson and Roberson of running the sex trafficking operation out of the Delavan Apartments, which Brooks owned at Delavan Avenue and 26th Street in KCK. Their crimes were shielded by Golubski, who Brooks was paying off, a grand jury in Topeka alleges.

Golubski, who worked at the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department from 1975 until he retired in 2010, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include “conspiracy against rights” and “involuntary servitude.” His lawyer, Chris Joseph, said Golubski maintains he is innocent and “looks forward to clearing his name from these decades-old and uncorroborated allegations.”

From 1996 to 1998, the men allegedly used beatings, sexual assaults and threats to force the girls to provide sexual services. Brooks is believed to have targeted girls who were runaways or released from a since-closed juvenile correctional facility in Beloit, Kansas — some 200 miles from KCK.

The girls were held at the apartments “in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude,” according to federal prosecutors. One of the girls told the grand jury she was raped by Roberson, who allegedly struck her with an iron and threatened to kill her, while a second woman said she was forced as a teenager to have sex with men, including Golubski, until she ran away months later.

The former cop and the three other men face life sentences if convicted.

Criminal pasts

The men indicted with Golubski have criminal histories that include violence or drug dealing.

Roberson, for example, was among six people charged in the drug case that sent Brooks to prison. Roberson pleaded guilty, admitting he and others made more than $30,000 in drug sales and returned the proceeds “to various locations” in the Kansas City area.

A witness in that case — who told police that Brooks burned his back with a hot iron because the kingpin thought he lost or stole crack — described Roberson as a “long-term friend” of Brooks. Roberson was released from federal prison in 2016, records show.

Robinson’s criminal background includes a 1989 sexual battery in Wyandotte County, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. Details of the conviction were not immediately available, but Robinson was paroled in 1991, KDOC records show.

Then in 1994, Brooks and Robinson listed their addresses at the Delavan townhomes — where prosecutors say the girls were trafficked — when Robinson established a corporation there, according to state records. Robinson listed the business as “real estate management.”

The next year, Robinson, Brooks and another man were charged in Wyandotte County with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery. The case was dropped in 1997 when the victim said he “could not say these three defendants were the perpetrators,” according to the dismissal.

Brooks “selected” a teenager to live at Delavan around the same time, according to the recently unsealed indictment. She had been released from the Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility and “had nowhere to live,” prosecutors said. She was 16.

At first, the girl lived in what was known as the “relaxed” part of the complex, where girls used drugs and drank alcohol with the men, according to the indictment. But she was then moved to the “working house,” where she was forced to have sex with men.

Prosecutors allege Golubski once “chose” the girl to provide him with sexual services and choked her. Brooks also allegedly raped her, slammed her into a wall and threatened to kill her. Roberson intimidated her as well, claiming “the defendants” had murdered a woman, prosecutors say.

At the apartments, Brooks kept an office where he allegedly stored cash, drugs and guns. He also regularly met there with Golubski, according to the indictment.

In the latest indictment, one of the unnamed girls said Roberson moved her into an office unit at the Delavan Apartments, where he “held her” from about September 1996 until October 1997, often locking her inside. Roberson is accused of raping and beating her multiple times.

When Roberson was in jail for a period, he told Brooks to instruct the girl not to leave Delavan or “smile at any other men,” according to the indictment. She complied, but Brooks told Roberson that she did smile at another man, prosecutors allege. Roberson then “dragged her down a staircase by her hair” as Brooks watched, laughing, according to charging documents.

Once she escaped, the girl went to a hospital, where she learned Roberson had impregnated her, prosecutors said. She was diagnosed with an eight-week ectopic pregnancy, which can be life threatening if untreated.

Even before the latest charges, activists and organizations, including Team Roc, the social justice arm of rapper Jay-Z’s entertainment company, were planning a rally at 1 p.m. Thursday outside Unified Government headquarters to call for a broader Justice Department probe of KCKPD.