New software, staff will speed examination of Golubski case files

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCTV) — The Wyandotte County Commission Thursday night passed a resolution to spend $1.7 million to help District Attorney Mark Dupree dig into all of the past cases of disgraced former detective Roger Golubski by first digitizing the decades-old case files.

Golubski has been accused of intimidating and sexually exploiting Black women under the color of law taking money from alleged sex traffickers to protect their operation.

Dupree said he asked for funding for a similar effort in 2018, after exonerating a man convicted by Golubski’s evidence gathering. At the time, the commission rejected his request for $1.2 million and instead gave him $155,000 to pay temporary staff to go through thousands of boxes of files dating back to the 1960s. That work began in 2019.

Dupree suggested two separate federal indictments against Golubski spurred the renewed urgency. One was unsealed in September, and another just this week.

“I’m asking tonight for this 1.7 million because we have made national news of an officer who worked in our community for nearly 40 years,” Dupree told the commission.

His request comes the very day that national organization Team ROC held a rally with hundreds in front of city hall, pushing once again for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the KCK Police Department.

Golubski was in law enforcement in KCK and then in Edwardsville from 1975 to 2016. Both cities are in Wyandotte County.

Dupree called the 4,000 boxes of files jammed into an old jail unorganized and unsearchable.

He said the work done so far has resulted in 16 years of case files being prepped, scanned, quality checked and purged. Yet, the current system allows searching only by the name of the defendant and sometimes the victims, not by detectives involved. The new software that makes up the bulk of the funding request would have a more comprehensive search option, allowing for a more efficient way to find every case Golubski was involved in.

“As this investigation is still going on federally,” Dupree stressed, “we do not know if and when there will be other names that may end up being called. As such we need to prepare and put in place a process so that we would not have to be in this situation again.”

The money isn’t in hand yet. The commission voted unanimously to commit to the spending. Law prevents them from allocating funds without specifying where they would come from.

The budget staff will now look for potential funding sources. A special meeting will be scheduled next week to vote on the specifics.

To read more KCTV5 Investigates features on Roger Golubski, click here.

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