KCK drug boss is too dangerous to go free. But not the corrupt cop who protected him? | Opinion

Convicted drug kingpin Cecil Brooks is as widely feared in Wyandotte County as his alleged longtime business partner and sex trafficking co-defendant Roger Golubski, the former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective who prosecutors say made Brooks possible by protecting him.

Yet apparently because Brooks is a convicted drug kingpin with asthma, he was temporarily released from prison and allowed to live with relatives in KCK during the pandemic.

At a Monday hearing on whether Brooks, who as of last month had served his sentence for selling crack, should be released while awaiting his sex trafficking trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Hunting told the court that while Brooks was out on home confinement two years ago, he went right back to selling drugs.

Or at least, that’s how it looked on footage captured by the camera the FBI had installed, which showed “what appeared to be hand-to-hand drug transactions.” When the FBI had his room searched, Hunting said, they found a loaded handgun, a silencer and some drug residue.

I must say it’s hard to imagine Brooks handing off any drugs himself, because as the CEO of his organization, he left customer service to underlings.

But Hunting’s larger point, that Brooks is too dangerous to be back on the street, is well documented: “The defendant has demonstrated that he is dangerous, that he is ruthless, that he is savvy and smart.”

For now, Brooks won’t be released. But at least in part, that’s because his lawyer, Jonathan Truesdale, came to court without any real plan for where Brooks would stay beyond the first week after his release from federal custody.

‘Terrified’ female victims ‘physically ill’ giving statements

Unfortunately, Hunting also came less prepared than he should have been for such an important case.

He did argue energetically against Brooks’ release: “People are terrified because of the defendant,” he said. Particularly among female victims, “it’s not uncommon for them to be physically ill” while giving a statement. They might be too afraid to continue to cooperate with the government’s case if he’s released, Hunting argued, which is 1,000% true. “The stripes on this tiger will not change.”

But Hunting was unable to answer several of Magistrate Judge Rachel Schwartz’s questions about the case.

You say he’s made false statements, Schwartz said, so what are those? Hunting didn’t know.

She asked whether Brooks had slipped away from his monitors only once or more than once during his time on home release, and he didn’t know that, either.

(Given the number of times I heard that Brooks had spent the previous evening at KCK’s To the Hoop Bar & Grill during that time, I’m going with more than once. Unless of course his favorite former hangout with his associates was on the list of places where he was allowed to spend time while wearing an ankle bracelet. In KCK, I’ve learned, anything is possible.)

Truesdale wound up apologizing for wasting the court’s time, and withdrew his request that Brooks be released. Now, he’ll try to come up with a more serious plan.

But that only happened after Truesdale consulted his client, right there in the courtroom, about where he might stay if set free. Brooks replied that his ex-wife would be willing to take him in, but then, no, was contradicted by the pretrial services officer, who told the judge that he had already spoken to the former Mrs. Brooks, who told him that “under no circumstance” was he moving back in with her.

With nowhere to send him, the judge couldn’t have released him if she’d wanted to.

But the ho-hum lawyering and leisurely pace of this whole case is disturbing.

This is not some minor prosecution, but one years and years in the making, involving victims who were afraid they’d be killed if they came forward but did it anyway. Leaving them out there hanging like this all these months must keep prosecutors up at night, or so I hope.

Still no trial date set for 70-year-old Roger Golubski

Brooks, 61, was impassive throughout the hearing, keeping his chin down but his eyes up and on the judge. He is accused of conspiring with Golubski and two other men to traffic underage girls at an apartment complex Brooks ran on KCK’s Delavan Avenue.

Some of the victims, prosecutors say, were recruited straight out of a juvenile correctional center, then were held “in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude” — raped and used “like chattel” while Golubski protected the operation from any real scrutiny.

Hunting told the court that a uniformed officer once called to the scene by a woman worried about some of these girls was told by management that he should call Golubski. When he did, the detective actually showed up, called the woman making the report crazy and convinced his fellow officer that everything was fine.

Two points that Truesdale made in court were certainly valid: First, that it would be unfair for Golubski and two other co-defendants to be free on home arrest while Brooks remains in custody. I agree, and like the victims who showed up for the hearing, think Golubski in particular should be behind bars, too.

Truesdale also said that “based on the considerable age of the allegations in this matter and amount of discovery involved in this case, it is not likely to proceed to trial soon.” That’s accurate as well.

And that’s why, with victims still equal parts terrified, angry that a trial date has not been set and worried that we’ll all be dead before 70-year-old Golubski ever spends a night in jail, prosecutors need to step it up.

Why is Kate Brubacher, the new U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas, who was at the hearing on Monday, not trying this case herself? She should be. And that’s not only because if it doesn’t result in a conviction, that will be on her.

Brooks’ previous handiwork, as described in court, includes a “long history” of sex crimes and such “depravity” as burning someone he thought had stolen from him with an iron. He once poured acid on another man suspected of cheating him, Hunting said, while “pliers were used to snip his skin away from his body.” He sodomized one man with a broom handle, the prosecutor said, and on another occasion, stuck a gun up an enforcer’s anus and threatened to fire if the man didn’t do as he was told. So sure, let this “model prisoner” free?

He should no more be at liberty than so many inmates I know who’ve been sent away for life should still be behind bars; if there’s any consistency to our so-called system, I haven’t picked up on it.

“There’s a fundamental unfairness,” Truesdale said, in a world that would let Golubski sleep in his own bed while Brooks does not. Tell me about it.