In 2011, after months of complaints from residents about the department’s SWAT team — broken TVs, missing cash, lost electronics, even a stolen pornographic video — the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department launched an undercover sting with help from the FBI to root out the department’s lying and stealing cops. They called it Operation Sticky Fingers.
On January 6, SCORE (Selective Crime Occurrence Reduction Enforcement Unit) officers served a search warrant at a rented house, carefully staged with thousands of dollars' 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 property.
In 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 attention.
According 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. “You can’t catch me unless you catch me on video,” an officer told prosecutors that he recalled Gardner once saying.
With only the word of these three discredited officers, prosecutors declined to press charges. But in a memo to then-Chief Rick Armstrong, the district attorney warned that any future police work involving Gardner —whether detective work, arrests, or testimony— should be viewed with deep suspicion. “It would be highly unlikely we would file a case that is based in significant part on his testimony,” the memo concluded.
The memo placed Gardner on the department's 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 KCKPD’s 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 prosecutions.
Nevertheless, 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 courts.
Gardner did not respond to a request for comment.
Documents exposed in a major hack of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, reviewed by WIRED Magazine and KCUR, reveal the department's 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 issues — those the department itself investigated and found untrustworthy — were not only allowed to stay on the force but often rose through the ranks or moved on to other departments, without the public knowing.
KCUR and WIRED corroborated the Giglio List found in the hack with testimony from the then-Wyandotte County district attorney in a 2011 case. The full context of what landed a particular officer on the list was not always evident.
The files are a further indication of what has been an open secret for decades — residents’ accusations that many KCKPD officers were corrupt or racist — and 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 dealer’s sex trafficking ring. Golubski told his roommate at the time that he’d rather “eat my gun” than go to jail.
He died of an apparent suicide on December 2, 2024, on the first day of his federal court trial.
Golubski’s file also highlights a broader flaw in the Giglio List and the department’s internal misconduct investigations: whether these records accurately reflect an officer’s complete history of misconduct. In Golubski’s 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 Golubski’s actions for decades — and covered it up.
When shown the list of officers included in the hack, retired KCKPD detective Max Seifert was surprised to see some officers’ names on the list whom he considered good cops, while leaving off officers who had flagrant misconduct but were intentionally protected by higher-ups.
“There are names that should be on that list, that I felt were worthy of criminal prosecution, or deserved to be criminally prosecuted,” 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 motorist.
“To me that’s 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 off,” Seifert said.
The 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 informant.
Ultimately, the department’s Giglio List is critically important because it directly affects criminal cases. An officer’s 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 professor.
“Officers don't 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 don't have a use for you,” McAllister said.
Nancy Chartrand, KCKPD's Public Information Officer, confirmed that the department was the target of a “cyber-incident” in 2024, which was reported to federal investigating agencies. She was concerned that publishing the names of officers from “this unverified, stolen list” was irresponsible, and “could unfairly and significantly harm these officers' reputations.”
"An 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 material," 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 it's for the courts to decide whether specific officer misconduct is disclosable to the defense, she said.
Last 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 WAMU/DCist later reported that the records showed MPD had tried to fire at least 24 officers for criminal misconduct — but high-ranking officials, including the then-police chief, intervened to keep them on the force.
The 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 more.
According 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.
“If you’re a juror,” he said, “you’re being asked to make a serious decision — one 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 can’t trust the person giving you the information — like the officer testifying — how are you supposed to do your job?”
The 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 crime-scene photo of a suicide on Facebook; another was arrested for disorderly conduct while off duty in an incident where he reportedly pushed a police horse.
Police 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 Sheriff’s 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 records.
While prosecutors are legally obligated to disclose Giglio material to the defense, it’s often difficult to know whether they’re actually fulfilling that responsibility. Public defenders have long argued that prosecutors routinely withhold exculpatory evidence. Prosecutors, in turn, claim that police departments don’t always share that information with them — making it hard to disclose what they don’t know exists.
Nevertheless, 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 conviction — fueling appeals that seek to overturn guilty verdicts. That’s what happened in Chicago, where misconduct by officer Ronald Watts led to dozens of exonerations — including 15 men whose convictions were thrown out after they said Watts framed them for refusing to pay him off.
In 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 Attorney’s Office, wrote in an email that defense attorneys are given information about Giglio officers “on a case-by-case basis” and that it’s up to law enforcement to provide information about officers with Giglio issues.
“If the District Attorney’s Office believes an officer has veracity issues,” he wrote, “we will not call that officer to the stand in a criminal case.”
Carter declined to answer whether any of the 62 officers on the list have ever been called to testify in court.
The leak of KCKPD’s Giglio List can be traced back to Golubski’s past transgressions. It was found in a folder labeled "Lamonte McIntyre Discovery," part of a wrongful imprisonment civil case McIntyre brought against the department and the Unified Government, which was ultimately settled for $12.5 million in June 2022.
McIntyre, who spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide he didn’t commit, claimed Golubski framed him for the murders. McIntyre’s 2017 exoneration triggered the FBI’s investigation into Golubski’s behavior, including a long history of sexually assaulting Black women.
Golubski later pleaded not guilty to the federal charges and, during a deposition in the civil case, invoked the Fifth Amendment 555 times.
As part of the discovery process in McIntyre’s 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 numbers.
According 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 41-year-old Kenneth Borg, who died after Golubski reportedly struck him with a nightstick.
These records suggest that the department had longstanding concerns about Golubski's integrity, predating the wrongful conviction of Lamonte McIntyre by decades, but the Borg incident didn’t hurt Golubski’s career. He retired in 2010 as captain of the homicide unit.
Other 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 force — often, it's the act of lying to internal investigators about the misconduct that ultimately gets them on the list.
The 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. “How can I say no if authority ask me that?” she said. Murphy was also added to the list.
Neither Johnson nor Murphy responded to requests for comment.
Mark 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 man’s head and threatened to kill him. Despite this, he stayed with the department for years and was eventually promoted to captain.
Glaspie did not respond to a request for comment.
Some 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 Haulmark’s 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, Kansas.
Haulmark did not respond to a request for comment.
Seventeen 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 driver’s 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 misconduct.
Years later, the department investigated Dorsett after his name appeared in a leak of Oath Keepers members, a far-right militia group involved in the January 6 riot in the US Capitol. According to hacked documents, the department checked Dorsett’s 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 one-time member of the Oath Keepers. Dorsett, who did not respond to a request for comment, remains a captain in the department today.
