Hack Exposes Kansas Cityâs Secret Police Misconduct List WIRED

pIn 2011 after months of complaints from residents about the departmentâs SWAT teamâbroken TVs missing cash lost electronics even a stolen pornographic videoâthe Kansas City Kansas Police Department launched an undercover sting with help from the FBI to root out the departmentâs lying and stealing cops They called it Operation Sticky FingersppOn January 6 Selective Crime Occurrence Reduction Enforcement Unit officers served a search warrant at a rented house carefully staged with thousands of dollarsâ worth of electronics weed and cash unaware that the house was wired with hidden cameras embedded into an alarm clock and smoke detector recording their every move The ruse worked Cameras captured three officers stealing video games an Apple iPod headphones and 640 in cash All three were fired and charged federally with conspiracy deprivation of civil rights and theft of government propertyppThis story is part of a joint investigation between KCUR and WIREDppIn interviews with investigators however the three implicated cops singled out a fourth SCORE officer not captured by the hidden cameras Jeff Gardner a man who KCKPD investigators found had recently punched his girlfriend in the jaw so hard that she needed medical attentionppAccording to his fellow officers Gardner had a history of smashing TVs during raids stealing video games and even one time swiping a bag of crab legs âYou canât catch me unless you catch me on videoâ an officer told prosecutors that he recalled Gardner once sayingppWith only the word of these three discredited officers prosecutors declined to press charges But in a memo to thenchief Rick Armstrong the district attorney warned that any future police work involving Gardnerâwhether detective work arrests or testimonyâshould be viewed with deep suspicion âIt would be highly unlikely we would file a case that is based in significant part on his testimonyâ the memo concludedppThe memo placed Gardner on the departments highly secret Veracity Disclosure List commonly known as a Giglio List which refers to Giglio v United States a 1972 decision which established that the prosecution must disclose any information that might question the credibility of its witnesses In KCKPDâs case this is a roster of officers whose credibility may be so compromised that the department believes their involvement in criminal cases whether through testimony arrests or investigative work could jeopardize prosecutionsppNevertheless 15 years later Gardner still works at KCKPD He is among 62 current and former officers who engaged in misconduct so damaging to their credibility that if called to testify it may need to be reported to the courtsppGardner did not respond to a request for commentppDocuments exposed in a major hack of the Kansas City Kansas Police Department reviewed by WIRED and KCUR reveal the departments Giglio List for the first time along with dramatic details of the misconduct that put officers on it from incompetence to domestic violence Published by the transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets more than 1 terabyte of hacked documents paint a disturbing picture Officers with egregious credibility issuesâthose the department itself investigated and found untrustworthyâwere not only allowed to stay on the force but often rose through the ranks or moved on to other departments without the public knowingppKCUR and WIRED corroborated the Giglio List found in the hack with testimony from the thenWyandotte County district attorney in a 2011 case The full context of what landed a particular officer on the list was not always evidentppThe files are a further indication of what has been an open secret for decadesâresidentsâ accusations that many KCKPD officers were corrupt or racistâand were made very public with the 2022 arrest of Roger Golubski a retired KCKPD detective accused in two federal cases for allegedly sexually assaulting at least seven women while on duty and protecting a drug dealerâs sex trafficking ring Golubski told his roommate at the time that heâd rather âeat my gunâ than go to jail He died of an apparent suicide on December 2 2024 on the first day of his federal court trialppGolubskiâs file also highlights a broader flaw in the Giglio List and the departmentâs internal misconduct investigations whether these records accurately reflect an officerâs complete history of misconduct In Golubskiâs case the file cites only a single incident from the 1970s and makes no mention of the numerous allegations he would later face That omission lends credibility to the criticism from KCKPD watchdogs who argue that department leadership knew about Golubskiâs actions for decadesâand covered it upppWhen shown the list of officers included in the hack retired KCKPD detective Max Seifert was surprised to see some officersâ names on the list whom he considered good cops while leaving off officers who had flagrant misconduct but were intentionally protected by higherupsppâThere are names that should be on that list that I felt were worthy of criminal prosecution or deserved to be criminally prosecutedâ said Seifert who worked with Golubski for 31 years before he says he was forced into retirement He later sued the Unified Government which runs Wyandotte County and Kansas City Kansas alleging retaliation for speaking out about the police beating of a motoristppâTo me thatâs an injustice to the officers that are good and it speaks to some of the things going on in the department that some of the names were left offâ Seifert saidppThe alleged misconduct cited in the hacked files also varies widely ranging from relatively minor violations like time theft to major sins like having a sexual relationship with a confidential informantppUltimately the departmentâs Giglio List is critically important because it directly affects criminal cases An officerâs credibility is on the line at trial and any past offenses if turned over to the defense by a prosecutor can impeach the officer and harm a prosecution If the misconduct on a Giglio List is a major offense like excessive force racial profiling or evidence tampering prosecutors simply refuse to let officers testify said Stephen McAllister a former US Attorney in Kansas who is now a University of Kansas law professorppâOfficers dont like it and understandably because when you get on the Giglio List if it gets bad enough then no prosecutor is going to want to use you as a witness and the police department may decide they really dont have a use for youâ McAllister saidppNancy Chartrand KCKPDs Public Information Officer confirmed that the department was the target of a âcyberincidentâ in 2024 which was reported to federal investigating agencies She was concerned that publishing the names of officers from âthis unverified stolen listâ was irresponsible and âcould unfairly and significantly harm these officersâ reputationsâppâAn officer being listed does not mean they are barred from testifying or that their testimony is impeachable It simply indicates the potential existence of disclosable materialâ Chartrand said To comply with its legal obligations under Giglio the department errs on the side of disclosing potentially impeachable misconduct to prosecutors but ultimately itâs for the courts to decide whether specific officer misconduct is disclosable to the defense she saidppLast year the ransomware gang BlackSuit published the police files after the Kansas City Kansas Police Department reportedly refused to pay a ransom The breach was part of a growing trend of law enforcement and other government agencies being targeted by ransomware groups In 2021 for instance another ransomware group called Babuk hacked the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department stealing 250 gigabytes of sensitive data A joint investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and WAMUDCist later reported that the records showed that MPD had tried to fire at least 24 officers for criminal misconductâbut highranking officials including the thenpolice chief intervened to keep them on the forceppThe KCKPD breach is even more extensive than the DC police leak which were also published by DDOSecrets The hacked files contained over a terabyte of records spanning decades including operational plans for law enforcement raids human resources data on overtime payments internal affairs databases and moreppAccording to Johann Drolshagen CEO of Equal Playing Field Solutions and founder of a nationwide publicly accessible database that tracks misconduct by police officers prosecutors and judges the Giglio List is best understood from the perspective of a juror âIf youâre a jurorâ he said âyouâre being asked to make a serious decisionâone that could send someone to prison for life You have to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty But if you canât trust the person giving you the informationâlike the officer testifyingâhow are you supposed to do your jobâppThe records show that officers included on the list were cited for filing false reports stealing during traffic stops or general incompetence One officer was added after allegedly posting a crimescene photo of a suicide on Facebook another was arrested for disorderly conduct while off duty in an incident where he reportedly pushed a police horseppPolice misconduct investigations like this are often shielded from public view with departments frequently citing privacy laws to deny access to internal records In 2017 the Los Angeles County Sheriffâs Department secretly investigated a Los Angeles Times reporter for at least three years after she published a story based on a leaked list of roughly 300 problem deputies In Kansas City Kansas the police department asserts that Giglio Lists are not subject to disclosure as they considered confidential personnel recordsppWhile prosecutors are legally obligated to disclose Giglio material to the defense itâs often difficult to know whether theyâre actually fulfilling that responsibility Public defenders have long argued that prosecutors routinely withhold exculpatory evidence Prosecutors in turn claim that police departments donât always share that information with themâmaking it hard to disclose what they donât know existsppNevertheless violating the Giglio rule can carry serious consequences If a violation is uncovered during trial a judge can declare a mistrial or bar prosecutors from using evidence tainted by the withheld information More often though evidence of officer misconduct surfaces after a convictionâfueling appeals that seek to overturn guilty verdicts Thatâs what happened in Chicago where misconduct by officer Ronald Watts led to dozens of exonerationsâincluding 15 men whose convictions were thrown out after they said Watts framed them for refusing to pay him offppIn the case of KCKPD it remains unclear how many officers on the Giglio List testified in criminal trials or how many convictions may have relied on their testimony In response to detailed questions and a request for comment Jonathan Carter public information officer for the Wyandotte County District Attorneyâs Office wrote in an email that defense attorneys are given information about Giglio officers âon a casebycase basisâ and that itâs up to law enforcement to provide information about officers with Giglio issues âIf the District Attorneyâs Office believes an officer has veracity issuesâ he wrote âwe will not call that officer to the stand in a criminal caseâppCarter declined to answer whether any of the 62 officers on the list have ever been called to testify in courtppThe leak of KCKPDâs Giglio List can be traced back to Golubskiâs past transgressions It was found in a folder labeled âLamonte McIntyre Discoveryâ part of a wrongful imprisonment civil case McIntyre brought against the department and the Unified Government which was ultimately settled for 125 million in June 2022 McIntyre who spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide he didnât commit claimed Golubski framed him for the murders McIntyreâs 2017 exoneration triggered the FBIâs investigation into Golubskiâs behavior including a long history of allegedly sexually assaulting Black womenppGolubski later pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and during a deposition in the civil case invoked the Fifth Amendment 555 timesppAs part of the discovery process in McIntyreâs lawsuit records show that the district attorney requested the Giglio List In response the department provided the district attorney with a Veracity Disclosure Lists that took the form of photocopied spreadsheets dating from October 2014 to 2020 These spreadsheets include officers names badge numbers and internal investigation numbersppAccording to files obtained through the data breach Golubski was added to the Giglio List due to a 1978 incident While details in the leaked documents are limited they likely reference a highly publicized case involving the death of 41yearold Kenneth Borg who died after Golubski reportedly struck him with a nightstick These records suggest that the department had longstanding concerns about Golubskis integrity predating the wrongful conviction of Lamonte McIntyre by decades but the Borg incident didnât hurt Golubskiâs career He retired in 2010 as captain of the homicide unitppOther officers on the Giglio List have transgressions that range from relatively minor issues like lying to supervisors or general incompetence to far more serious misconduct such as falsifying police reports domestic violence or excessive forceâoften its the act of lying to internal investigators about the misconduct that ultimately gets them on the listppThe records show for instance that former Officer Chris Johnson was placed on the Giglio List for misconduct stemming from a 2006 incident where he admitted to having sex with a confidential informant he recruited The following year former Officer Curtis Murphy was accused of making sexual advances on a domestic violence victim According to internal records the woman told investigators that Murphy asked her to undress to examine her bruises while making sexually explicit remarks âHow can I say no if authority ask me thatâ she said Murphy was also added to the listppNeither Johnson nor Murphy responded to requests for commentppMark Glaspie was placed on the Giglio List for a 1992 incident in which he allegedly struck a man in the head and groin with a flashlight then put a gun to the manâs head and threatened to kill him Despite this he stayed with the department for years and was eventually promoted to captainppGlaspie did not respond to a request for commentppSome officers were quickly fired for misconduct only to be reinstated Others on the list have since taken positions with nearby law enforcement agencies Officer Steven Haulmarkâs disciplinary file includes a long history of misconduct investigations some of which were sustained including improper home searches According to his record he was terminated by the department in 2003 but was later reinstated He now serves as the chief of police in Great Bend KansasppHaulmark did not respond to a request for commentppSeventeen officers like Gardner are still with the department or have risen through the ranks Gregg Dorsett was initially fired in 2018 and placed on the Giglio List for incompetence and misleading investigators during a probe into an incident where he allegedly threw a shoe at a moving vehicle shattering the driverâs side mirror and injuring the driver His disciplinary records show however that soon after his termination Dorsett was reinstated and continued to be investigated for his misconductppYears later the department investigated Dorsett after his name appeared in a leak of Oath Keepers members a farright militia group involved in the January 6 riot in the US Capitol According to hacked documents the department checked Dorsettâs daily attendance sheets to confirm that he had not been at the Capitol on January 6 In an interview with internal investigators however he admitted to being a onetime member of the Oath Keepers Dorsett who did not respond to a request for comment remains a captain in the department todayppIn your inbox Upgrade your life with WIREDtested gearppBlood tests for Alzheimerâs are finally hereppBig Story How Gen Z toppled Nepalâs leader and chose a new one on DiscordppMark Zuckerbergâs neighbors revolt against his illegal schoolppEvent Join some of the most influential voices in tech and beyondpppppp 2025 Condà Nast All rights reserved WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers The material on this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condà Nast Ad Choicesp