White Boy Rick

White Boy Rick is the nickname bestowed by the media on Richard J. Wershe, Jr., also known as Rick Wershe.

Wershe is believed to be the FBI’s youngest paid informant in the War on Drugs. He was recruited at age 14 because he was a street savvy white kid who knew all the wrong people in an increasingly black neighborhood in Detroit. He came from a dysfunctional family and once told Michigan officials he raised himself. He knew a black drug gang that was the target of an FBI investigation.

White Boy Rick Wershe was considered the Detroit FBI’s most productive drug informant of the 1980s, until he told federal agents about corruption in the top ranks of the Detroit Police Department. For complex reasons, Wershe’s relationship with the FBI went sour and they dropped him as an informant.

Lacking parental guidance, young Wershe turned to the only trade he knew, the one the police taught him. He began selling dope. He got caught within a year. He was convicted of possessing a large amount and he was given a life prison sentence.

Over the years, corrupt officials worked to ensure Wershe was not paroled. Yet he finally won parole in the summer of 2017. While he was in prison, he got caught up in a Florida car fraud/theft scheme and he was sentenced to five years in prison to run consecutive to his drug conviction. When Wershe was paroled in Michigan he was transferred to a prison in Florida to serve his term there.