A federal court has refused the defendant’s request to dismiss Lamonte McIntyre’s claims against a Kansas City, Kan., police officer who allegedly sexually assaulted his mother and the Kansas county that wrongfully convicted him of a 1994 murder that landed him in prison for 23 years
If that first paragraph sounds hyperbolic, then you might want to sit down. Because the story of Lamonte McIntyre may be one of the craziest, most immoral tales of America’s corrupt criminal justice system that ever existed.
Also…I am obsessed with this story.
In the late 1980s, officer Daniel Golubski allegedly threatened a woman named Rose with arrest unless she performed oral sex on him in the KCPD headquarters. Reportedly, this was not the first time that Golubski had assaulted a black woman in this manner. The assault was reportedly interrupted by another police officer, who said nothing. When the woman refused further advances, Golubski vowed revenge.
By 1994, Golubski had become a detective in the department when Doniel Quinn and Donald Ewing were killed in an execution-style murder in Kansas City, Kan. After an investigation that turned up no physical evidence, no DNA, fingerprints or even circumstantial evidence, Golubski arrested 17-year-old Lamonte McIntyre, who had no connection to the victims. In fact, there was only one real connection in the entire case:
“Rose” was Lamonte’s mother, Rose McIntyre.
Lamonte’s case was tried in front of judge J. Dexter Burdette and prosecuted by then-Wyandotte County Assistant District Attorney Terra Morehead, a prosecutor who allegedly manufactured the entire case, presented coerced witness testimony and falsified evidence. When the jury convicted McIntyre, they had no idea that the star witness had told Morehead that Lamonte was innocent. They didn’t know that Morehead had threatened to take away the woman’s children if she didn’t testify the way Morehead wanted. The jury also had no clue about one other important detail.
Judge Burdette and Morehead were involved in a romantic relationship.
Lamonte Mcintyre spent 23 years in prison before he was freed for what the new district attorney called a “manifest injustice.” When McIntyre was freed, Judge Burdette was still a judge, Golubski was still a police officer but Morehead was no longer a prosecutor in Wyandotte county.
She is a U.S. attorney.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court of Kansas Judge Kathryn Vratil denied Golubski’s motion to dismiss the allegations against him on the grounds that he has qualified immunity. To be clear, he hadn’t argued that the claims are not true, only that he cannot be sued for something he did in his capacity as a police officer. Vratil also refused to dismiss the claims against other officers named in the suit, writing that their motions were frivolous.
Golubski’s actions were alleged by McIntyre to fit into a wider pattern of the detective’s exploitation and sexual extortion of black women in Kansas City, Kansas’ most impoverished neighborhoods and the subsequent manipulation of his victims to provide fabricated evidence to close his police cases.
McIntryre alleged, and Vratil incorporated in her ruling, that KCKPD officers knew about Golubski’s behavior and did nothing to stop it.
“These predilections and abuses were well known among other officers and supervisors within the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department,” Vratil’s ruling reads. “They knew — and even joked about — Golubski’s practice of arresting black prostitutes, forcing them to have sex (often at the precinct house itself) and then releasing them without pressing charges.”
Allegations against Golubski in the McIntyre lawsuit are supported by sworn claims by others. As one example, retired FBI agent Alan Jennerich said in an affidavit submitted as part of McIntyre’s motion to vacate his homicide conviction that he was assigned to investigate the KCKPD in the late 1980s and early 1990s and learned, among other things, that Golubski extorted sexual favors from black women who felt compelled under the threat of arrest.
Vratil’s ruling means that the court assumes the allegations are true for the purposes of determining whether a lawsuit can proceed. She did, however, declare that Wyandotte County cannot be held liable for punitive charges.
In February, Lamont received $1.5 million and a certificate of innocence for the 23 years he spent in jail.
Burdette, Morehead and Golubski have all made more money.