Lamonte McIntyre Settlement: $12.5M Federal and $1.5M State Payout

The Lamonte McIntyre settlement totaled $12.5 million, approved unanimously by the Wyandotte County Commission on June 30, 2022, to resolve a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.¹ Combined with an earlier $1.5 million payment from the state of Kansas under its wrongful-conviction compensation statute, McIntyre received roughly $14 million after spending 23 years in prison for a 1994 double murder he did not commit.

How the $12.5 Million Settlement Was Structured

The Wyandotte County Commission voted 9-0 on the night of June 30, 2022, to approve the payout.¹ The settlement resolved claims brought by both Lamonte McIntyre and his mother, Rosie McIntyre.² Lamonte had originally sought $93 million in damages and Rosie an additional $30 million, so the final figure came in well below the roughly $123 million the family had demanded.

The Unified Government financed the payment through 10-year general obligation bonds at an estimated interest rate of about 3.5 percent.³ The agreement was not an admission of wrongdoing by the local government.¹

The McIntyres were represented by Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, LLP (partners Barry Scheck and Emma Freudenberger), Lathrop GPM, and Cheryl Pilate of Morgan Pilate LLC, the same attorney who had led the effort to vacate McIntyre’s conviction years earlier.²

The Separate $1.5 Million State Compensation

The $12.5 million from the Unified Government was the second payment McIntyre received. When he walked out of prison in October 2017, Kansas had no law compensating people who had been wrongfully imprisoned. In May 2018, the legislature passed House Bill 2579, which set compensation at $65,000 for every year of wrongful imprisonment and $25,000 for every year spent on parole or a sex-offender registry. The statute also provides housing and tuition assistance, counseling, access to the state health care program, and expungement.⁴⁵

On February 24, 2020, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced that McIntyre’s claim under the new law had been resolved for $1,553,379.45, along with two years of state health care benefits and a tuition waiver. The figure reflected $65,000 for each of his 23-plus years behind bars.⁶⁷ The state payment addressed the fact of wrongful imprisonment. It did not address who caused it, which is why the federal lawsuit against the local government continued on a separate track.

What the Federal Lawsuit Alleged

McIntyre and his mother filed McIntyre v. Unified Government, No. 18-cv-2545 (D. Kan.), in October 2018. The complaint named former KCKPD detective Roger Golubski, then-Chief Terry Zeigler (Golubski’s former partner), the police department, Wyandotte County, and 20 unnamed officers and supervisors.⁸

The suit alleged decades of “dirty policing and malicious prosecution.” Rosie McIntyre’s account was central. She alleged that Golubski had forced her to perform sexual acts at a police station after threatening to arrest her boyfriend, and that when she moved and changed her phone number to avoid him, he retaliated by conspiring to frame her teenage son for the murders.⁹ The complaint further alleged that Golubski’s sexual misconduct was widely known inside the department and that supervisors failed to investigate or intervene.⁸

The 1994 Conviction Behind the Suit

The underlying prosecution had been badly compromised. On April 15, 1994, Doniel Quinn, 21, and Donald Ewing, 34, were shot and killed in a blue Cadillac on Hutchings Street in Kansas City, Kansas. Witnesses described a young man in black carrying a 12-gauge shotgun.⁹ McIntyre, then 17, was arrested within 24 hours. He had no connection to either victim, no motive, and said he was across town with relatives at the time.¹⁰

The state’s case rested almost entirely on eyewitness identifications. Golubski assembled a photo lineup that included McIntyre, his brother, and his cousin, so that McIntyre was the only real suspect in the array. No physical evidence linked him to the crime; shell casings were never fingerprinted, clothing and shoes were never tested, and the murder weapon was never recovered.¹¹ The trial judge, J. Dexter Burdette, and the prosecutor, Terra Morehead, had previously been in a romantic relationship that was never disclosed to the defense.¹² Eyewitness Niko Quinn later said she had been coerced by Golubski and Morehead into falsely identifying McIntyre and was threatened with the loss of her children if she refused.¹³ Ruby Mitchell testified she recognized the shooter as “Lamonte,” but the Lamonte she actually knew was a different person who was out of town that day. McIntyre’s court-appointed trial attorney was on probation at the time and was later disbarred; his post-conviction attorney never met with him, called no witnesses, and was also eventually disbarred.

McIntyre was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.¹²¹⁴¹⁵

The Golubski Cases That Followed the Settlement

The settlement resolved McIntyre’s claims but not the broader inquiry into the officer at the center of them. In September 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Roger Golubski on six counts of depriving individuals of their civil rights through sexual assault between 1998 and 2002.¹⁶ Two months later, a second indictment charged Golubski, Cecil Brooks, and two others with conspiracy to hold young women in involuntary servitude and sex trafficking of minors during the 1990s. Prosecutors alleged Golubski had protected Brooks’s drug and sex trafficking operation and had personally participated in the rape of a 16-year-old girl.¹⁷ Golubski pleaded not guilty and was placed on house arrest.¹⁸

He never faced trial. On December 2, 2024, the morning jury selection was to begin at the federal courthouse in Topeka, Golubski failed to appear and was found dead at his Edwardsville, Kansas, home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss that day, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation closed its death investigation on January 29, 2025, ruling it a suicide.¹⁹

The McIntyre payout has not been the last of its kind. In October 2025, Domonique Moore and Cedric Warren filed their own federal civil rights lawsuit against the Unified Government, Golubski’s estate, and five KCKPD officers, alleging they had been framed for a 2009 double murder through fabricated evidence and coerced testimony. Their convictions were vacated in December 2024 after more than 15 years in prison, and DA Dupree declined to refile charges, citing prosecutorial misconduct.²⁰²¹ Their complaint described the same pattern alleged in McIntyre’s suit, with Warren allegedly targeted because his mother had rejected Golubski’s sexual advances. In November 2022, KCKPD Chief Karl Oakman opened a review of 155 cases handled by Golubski, estimating 18 to 24 months to complete.²²

1
KCUR. Unified Government to Pay $12.5 Million to Wrongfully Imprisoned Kansas City, Kansas Man
2
NSB. Kansas Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit Reaches $12.5 Million Settlement
3
The Kansas City Star. Unified Government Approves McIntyre Settlement
4
Innocence Project. Kansas Legislature Passes Wrongful Conviction Compensation Law
5
Innocence Project. Exoneree Compensation in Kansas
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KSHB. Wrongfully Convicted Lamonte McIntyre to Receive $1.5 Million From Kansas
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CNN. Lamonte McIntyre Mistaken Conviction Award
8
KMBC. Lawsuit Accuses KCK Police of Decades of Corruption, Sexual Abuse
9
Iowa Public Radio. An Innocent Kansas Man Spent 23 Years in Prison. His Release Exposed Decades of Police Corruption
10
The Midwest Innocence Project. Lamonte McIntyre
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The New York Times. Innocent Murder Exoneration
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The Kansas City Star. Lamonte McIntyre Case Details
13
Iowa Public Radio. Niko Quinn Spent 30 Years Trying to Tell the Truth About a Double Murder in Kansas City, Kansas
14
KCUR. An Innocent Kansas Man Spent 23 Years in Prison. His Release Exposed Decades of Police Corruption
15
Centurion Ministries. McIntyre, Lamonte
16
The Kansas City Star. Team Roc and Midwest Innocence Project
17
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department Detective and Three Others Indicted for Conspiracy
18
Kansas Reflector. Roger Golubski, Ex-KCKPD Detective Accused of Abuse, Dead of Apparent Suicide Before Trial
19
KCUR. Days Before Trial, a Fearful Roger Golubski Wrote Letters and Talked of Suicide
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KCUR. Men Wrongfully Imprisoned by Golubski Sue Kansas City Police
21
KSHB. 2 Men Sue KCKPD, Estate of Roger Golubski for Wrongful Imprisonment
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KMBC. Kansas City, Kansas Officials Detail Plans to Review Roger Golubski Old Case Files