‘Thank you, Jesus!’ More women victimized by ex-KCK cop Golubski can testify against him | Opinion

Do you want the good news first, or the not good?

The not good, which I’ll dispense with quickly, is that the judge in both the criminal and the civil cases against former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski has denied the prosecution’s motion to set a trial date ASAP.

Federal Judge Toby Crouse said no, he’ll wait until July to even start looking for a block of time. Which was expected, and means that on the second anniversary of Golubski’s September 2022 arrest by the FBI, we still won’t have heard opening arguments.

The good news, though, is a major development, and a much needed win for discouraged victims, as well as the prosecution: Crouse also ruled on Wednesday that in addition to the two women Golubski is charged with raping and kidnapping, seven other women will be able to testify about what they say he did to them.

Five of those women will tell the jury that he sexually assaulted them, and two will testify that he attempted to do the same to them.

Ophelia Williams, who Golubski is charged with raping for years after he initially arrived at her home to arrest her 14-year-old twins, has not been well, and is in the hospital right now. But she cried, “Thank you, Jesus!” when I reached her there and told her the news.

For “prior bad act” evidence to be admissible, the judge had to rule that a jury could find by a preponderance of the evidence that the uncharged acts occurred. The judge also must find that the testimony is relevant, probative, and that its value wouldn’t likely be outweighed by the possibility that it could cause undue prejudice against the defendant.

Taken together, that’s an awfully high bar, but such testimony was, for example, allowed in convicted former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s rape trials in both New York and Los Angeles.

Crouse said all of those requirements had been met in this case, too, so “the Government’s motion to admit the testimony of all seven other victims is granted.”

The uncharged sexual assaults and attempted assaults allegedly occurred between 1983 and “continued through at least 2004.”

Golubski objection ‘lacks merit’

A reasonable jury could find by a preponderance of the evidence that the five who will say they were assaulted really “occurred for at least two reasons,” Crouse wrote. First, the “other act” evidence consists of detailed personal testimony about the alleged ‘other acts,’ including the nature and circumstances of the alleged forced sex acts committed against each” of them, “the locations of the acts, and any follow-up threats allegedly made.”

“Golubski’s situation, therefore,” he said, “is not akin to the one in United States v. Edwards,” cited by his attorney, “where the proffered testimony consisted of the fact that a witness had ‘heard ‘rumors’ about ‘unspecific’ allegations of sexual abuse lodged by others… So, Golubski’s objection that the testimony … amounts to unproven, untested personal narrative and therefore no jury could credit it lacks merit.”

Second, the judge wrote, “the proposed testimony is largely consistent across cases” as they share “at least two of three overlapping factors.” In six of the seven cases, he wrote, “Golubski allegedly approached the victim with an offer of assistance related to his role as a police officer.”

Also in six of the cases, though not the same ones, “Golubski allegedly isolated the victim in an environment he could control, often the same location another victim attests she was assaulted in.”

“And six of the seven victims allege Golubski made specific and similar follow-up threats designed to keep the alleged victim quiet. … While not all seven of the stories align perfectly in every respect, that does not undermine their persuasive value. If anything, a perfect match on every possible detail might imply improper coercion or coaching.”

I found that last sentence particularly encouraging, because it suggests that Crouse understands sexual assault.

‘Each of the victims fits a certain profile’

The judge also recognizes that the fact these women didn’t report what happened to them for years does not mean it shouldn’t be heard by the jury.

They “propose to testify that they did not originally come forward at the time of the alleged assaults out of fear of organized law enforcement retribution orchestrated by Golubski,” he wrote.

He cites the 2012 case United States v. Sturm as finding that “the more seriously disputed the material fact” — in this case, that Golubski raped Williams and the second victim, known only as S.K. in court documents — “the more heavily this factor weighs in favor of admissibility.”

The fact that Golubski strongly denies sexually assaulting Williams and S.K., in other words, argues that the other women should be heard.

Why? “In particular,” Crouse wrote, “the fact that many unique details” of Williams’ and S.K.’s stories “also appear in the proposed testimony” of the other seven women “makes it more likely that the trier of fact will find” Williams and S.K. credible.

“The charged and other acts are similar,” the ruling says. “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. 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, the judge says in the ruling, argues that cross-examining and impeaching these other witnesses “will take up a considerable amount of time and amount to a series of mini-trials.” So to save time, once the trial finally starts, we should keep witnesses who have waited many years for justice from ever getting to stand up in court and be heard?

No doubt hearing from them will lengthen the trial, Crouse answers, “but many courts have found that other victim testimony is not unnecessarily time consuming or cumulative if the Government narrowly tailors its line of questioning to similarities between the other acts and the charged act.”

The women who have said that Golubski abused and terrified them have grown less and less hopeful as this case has dragged on without any trial date being set.

But this ruling expanding the testimony the jury will be able to hear at last gave them the good news they so desperately needed.