A 46-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man serving a life sentence for a 2000 murder is seeking his release, saying he, too, suffered a “manifest injustice” because he was set up by disgraced Police Detective Roger Golubski.
In a motion filed Tuesday in Wyandotte County District Court, Ahmon Mann says Golubski was “the main architect of the state’s one-witness case,” getting a 15-year-old to point the finger at Mann.
Much like the case of Lamonte McIntyre, a young Kansas City, Kansas, Black man who was exonerated for a double homicide in 2017, Mann was convicted with the testimony of just one witness who has since recanted. Mann has been in prison for 25 years.
Mann's case is another of what could be several wrongful convictions based on police work by Golubski, a white police officer who killed himself a year ago just as he was set to go on trial for federal civil rights violations. Two other men who accused Golubski of misconduct were released from prison last year when Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree dropped the case citing prosecutorial misconduct.
In all, Dupree has said there are more than 19 cases his Community Integrity Unit is looking at that are connected to Golubski.
The state court violated Mann’s constitutional rights by presenting perjured testimony and suppressing evidence, the motion says. Mann also had poor representation by his lawyer, which violates Mann’s Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel, the motion states.
Mann’s case mirrors that of McIntyre, who was convicted on the testimony of just one witness who said Golubski framed him with the help of a now-infamous prosecutor, Terra Morehead. McIntyre, too, had a lawyer who put up a flimsy defense and was later disbarred for other work.
Mann was sentenced to life in prison after his conviction on first-degree murder for the April 2000 murder of Robert Diaz, who was found in a red Mazda at 40th and Minnie streets. Diaz was shot seven times.
Golubski claimed that two women driving a brown Ford Escort named 15-year-old Loren Artis as being near the shooting.
“Consistent with his proven corruption and misconduct in other cases, Golubski arrested … Artis on a manufactured tip, threatened to pin the murder charge on him, and fed young Mr. Artis the facts that he wanted to hear, even suggesting by name the persons he wanted Artis to implicate,” the motion says.
Artis testified at Mann’s trial that on the night of the shooting, he had been selling drugs on the corner of 40th and Minnie. Artis said he saw Mann riding in the front seat of the Mazda, then saw him shoot Diaz; then, along with another man who had been in the back seat, Mann jumped out of the car.
Mann said he had been elsewhere that night, waiting for a buddy to get out of jail, and others saw him there. But prosecutors said that Mann shot Diaz in retaliation for the murder of a friend’s sister.
Artis recanted in 2011, then again this year. Artis said he lied because Golubski and his then-partner, Terry Zeigler, threatened to pin a murder on him. Zeigler was ultimately made chief of police, retiring in 2019.
“When I was telling Golubski and Zeigler the story I made up, any time I got details wrong, they would correct me or tell me what to say,” Artis said in a statement quoted in the motion. For example, when Artis told the detective that the victim’s car was green, “Golubski and Zeigler said no, the car was red, so I changed my story to match the one they wanted me to tell,” Artis said.
