KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCTV) - During two days of sworn depositions, S.K. detailed rapes, beatings and being forced to crawl on her hands and knees while wearing a dog collar.
Her allegations led to federal charges for retired KCKPD detective Roger Golubski. He faces life in prison if convicted.
S.K. asked for breaks and needed tissues as she detailed a period of her life beginning when she was in middle school.
Trigger warning: Some may find the details of the allegations disturbing.
She outlined a miscarriage, which left her hospitalized, and forced car rides across state lines where she curled into a ball on the floorboards of a police cruiser.
Today, she is in her 30s and is waiting for the legal process to unfold.
Golubski has been arrested, jailed, then released to home confinement due to health conditions.
The depositions obtained by KCTV5 involved a civil lawsuit against Golubski. S.K. was not part of the legal action but gave testimony under oath as a third-party witness.
S.K. describes the alleged abuse
S.K. says four years of abuse started with one phone call when she was 13 years old. She didn’t recognize the number and didn’t know the person at the other end of the line.
He told her he was a police officer.
“He said he needed to speak with me regarding an incident that had took place earlier that week,” S.K. said in her deposition. “He said that my name was listed as one of the witnesses… And if I didn’t want to go to jail, I need to get to him and talk to him and tell my side of the story.”
S.K. said Golubski told her that if they met at the police station, she’d most likely go to jail, so that they needed to meet someplace else. S.K. said she had no idea what incident she could have witnessed but wanted to figure out what he was talking about.
They met at a Walmart parking lot in Kansas City, Kansas.
“I really thought he was trying to help me, you know?” said S.K. “I thought it was a mix-up but we would get it straightened out.”
She said she never did learn about an incident that sparked the call. It was never brought up again. He asked her questions about her life. He asked her who she cherished most in the world. She told him that person was her grandmother.
She said that Golubski asked questions about her past. She told him about her life in foster homes, about abuse she had suffered. She thought maybe he would help her get justice.
Then, S.K. said, Golubski put his hand on her thigh and proceeded “to put his hand closer and closer to my vaginal area.” She goes on to describe a sexual assault. Other encounters quickly followed, including rape and sodomy.
S.K. said she was warned not to talk about it “or I would be kissing my grandma goodbye or my brother would be doing life in jail.”
She said Golubski made it clear he knew how to get to her grandmother — even described the clothing she wore earlier in the day. “Hopefully, that’s not the last outfit you see her in,” S.K. said he told her.
S.K. said she learned about Golubski’s rules.
“The rules were, I had to abide by the rules or I would end up with… consequences,” she said. “One of his demands was for me to call him ‘Papi,’ or ‘Big Daddy.’ I was not allowed to address him by name. Another rule was, of course, I couldn’t speak to anyone about the matter or try to report it… I am not to back talk him or I’m not allowed to ask questions… I’m to remain seated on the backseat floor behind the passenger seat at all times.”
S.K. said she was ordered to always take his call or call him back immediately. She had to step away from other people when they spoke and had to keep her words to a bare minimum. She was not allowed to bring a bookbag, purse, or cellphone to their meetings. She said she obeyed, because “I didn’t take light of his threats. I didn’t feel like he made a threat that he couldn’t keep.”
She said Golubski kept a close eye on her and checked up on her. He would park outside her school to see who she interacted with. S.K.’s childhood friend told investigators that S.K. had a drastic change in behavior. S.K. went “from bubbly and bright to downcast and silent,” and the friend saw S.K. with injuries.
S.K. testified that Golubski would get angry because her body didn’t react the way he wanted. “He was growing frustration because he couldn’t get his self aroused or whatnot…. He continued to kind of fondle his self… trying to get it aroused.” She said she was forced to perform oral sex or let him enter her from behind.
S.K. said Golubski called her “every name in the book. I was bytch, I was whore; I was slut; I was c** dumpster. That was his favorite word, c** dumpster. So he never called me by name.”
S.K. also testified to ripping out her own hair and biting herself to leave evidence at different locations.
“The river was torture”
S.K. alleges the most brutal abuse took place along the Kansas River.
“Every encounter at the river I thought was my last day on Earth,” S.K. testified.
She claims Golubski put a dog collar and leash on her and made her crawl on all fours.
“He did what he wanted to do to me at the river. Like, he humiliated me, he dehumanized me, he belittled me. He took every piece of sanity that I had by putting a dog collar on me and walking me around, as I’m his pet and I’m not a human being. So, that’s why the river is so devastating to me,” said S.K.
S.K. claims Golubski sang to her but changed the words to a childhood rhyme from “Down by the river, said a hanky-pank, where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank” to “Down by the river said a hanky-pank, where they won’t find her until she stank.”
S.K. testified Golubski told her about another woman who disappeared.
“You better ask Connie about me. Oh, wait she’s not here no more. I can dump you off in that river and nobody will ever know s***,” S.K. recalled Golubski saying.
S.K. claims Golubski told her he’s one reason the river stinks and no one would be able to hear her screams because of nearby trains.
“Even when he was raping me, I just would close my eyes and pray,” said S.K.
S.K. alleges the most brutal abuse took place along the Kansas River.(KCTV5 News)
How does it end?
There were times when S.K. had hope that the abuse would end.
On one occasion, she testified that she was with Golubski at a car wash while he was meeting another officer. S.K. testified that she was not sure what was happening, but Golubski wanted to avoid being near a lot of people. She was on the floor in the backseat but, at one point, the officer got near the car and saw her. “We locked eyes,” S.K. said.
“I was happy. In my mind, I’m like, ‘Finally. It’s over,’” S.K. said. “All I’m thinking about is the man with the same skin complexion I got, like you know, I know he’s going to help me. Like, he sees I’m a kid. Like, I’m a little girl… this all going to be over with.” But, he did not help her. He and Golubski finished their conversation and left the car wash.
At one point, S.K. said she told her aunt. At first, she was supportive. The aunt forced S.K. to go to the police department. S.K. said she was scared and refused to get out of the car. The aunt went inside without her. S.K. thought “that day in the car was going to be the last day that I would ever feel any pain from this man.”
But again, S.K. was let down.
When her aunt returned from inside the police department, she was angry
“She said that I lied,” S.K. testified. “That’s a good man of integrity. He wouldn’t jeopardize his job…. It can’t be true because he was on duty during the times that I mentioned that we had encounters… He was on duty, so there’s no way possible he done that to me.”
S.K. said Golubski beat her in retaliation. “He hit me in the chest and I lost my breath… Then, he hit me again in my face… which is why it’s a permanent scar there.” S.K. said. Her bottom lip hung almost her chin due to swelling.
S.K. described one night when she was awakened by a sharp pain. The pain continued through the next morning.
“I started to wonder if it had anything to do with the assaults,” she said. “I had no idea it had anything to do with a child. But, I knew the blood was way heavier than a normal cycle for me.” When she went to the hospital, she learned she had suffered from a miscarriage.
“I screwed up,” she said. “That’s all I was telling myself was, ‘I screwed up. I screwed up.’ Like, he’s going to kill me.” She said that Golubski told her she had set him up. “He told me it wasn’t his baby, that I was a liar, that I was trying to pin it on him, that I wanted money from him.”
S.K. testified that there was no one else who could have made her pregnant. She never told that Golubski was the father.
S.K.’s nightmare finally ends when she’s 17 or 18 and being assaulted in a Walmart parking lot.
People in the parking lot began staring.
“And, I just took off running. Like, I just ran until I couldn’t run no more because I was just tired,” said S.K.
“I was tired of getting hit and I was tired of being sexually assaulted.”
What else did S.K. see?
S.K. testified she rode around in Golubski’s patrol car during his shifts and crossed paths with police officers.
She would remain crouched down on the back floorboard but would occasionally look up after she counted to seven.
She would witness bags being exchanged. Sometimes, it was in a brown paper McDonald’s sack.
Other times, it involved a black duffle bag stored in the trunk of Golubski’s cruiser.
S.K. testified to seeing wads of money and drugs.
“He had marijuana. He had crack and he had some type of pill that were — I don’t know what kind they were, but they were like colorful. Different colors. And then, he would have brown cigarettes and that’s it,” said S.K.
S.K. was questioned why she thought they were crossing paths with other officers. She responded they were in uniforms and had badges. The vehicles appeared to be patrol cars with flashing lights. One stop had a white man dressed in a collared shirt and khakis, which she took to be a sergeant or lieutenant.
S.K. described how Golubski was called “Boss Man” by others including, drug dealers.
“I run this s***. Don’t nothing get past me. Anything that moves in the city moves when I say so,” S.K. recalled Golubski saying to a drug dealer.
S.K. testified Golubski had two cellphones. One phone was for more professional calls and cop lingo. The other phone was a burner phone, which changed throughout the years, and involved less professional conversations where Golubski would tell people not to report things, that he would handle it.
S.K. was asked why she complied with Golubski’s orders for four years.
“Because I didn’t want to die,” testified S.K.