If it weren’t for bad luck, Richard “White Boy Rick” Wershe, Jr. wouldn’t have any luck at all.
The Florida Office of Executive Clemency has turned down his bid for early release from prison. He already served 29 years of a previous life sentence in Michigan in a drug case. He’s currently serving time in a Florida prison for a stolen car scheme he participated in while serving time in the Sunshine State in a federal witness protection prison. In other words, Wershe committed a state crime while he was in a federal prison in Florida. Wershe was in a federal protective prison because he put himself at risk helping the FBI successfully conduct an undercover sting operation against corrupt cops in Detroit.
If you feel a bit dizzy trying to keep track of the misadventures of Mr. Wershe, you are not alone. His is a complex story. He was the subject of a recent “based on a true story” Hollywood movie called simply White Boy Rick.
The man who is known to most people as White Boy Rick was the FBI’s youngest paid informant during the crack cocaine days of the 1980s. They recruited him through his father because the teen was friends with the Curry Brothers, a Detroit drug ring with political connections. The leader, Johnny Curry, was engaged to and later married Cathy Volsan, the niece of Detroit’s powerful mayor at the time, Coleman A. Young.
Jim Dixon, one of the FBI agents who recruited Rick, expressed amazement at how much the 14-year old kid from Detroit’s east side knew about the burgeoning drug trade, when I interviewed him for my book, Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs. Dixon passed away recently after a long bout with cancer.
John Anthony, a retired FBI agent who was the legal adviser to the Detroit Division for many years, told me Wershe was probably the most productive paid informant the Bureau had in Detroit in that era.
Snitching About Drugs and More
Wershe may have done his snitch work too well. One of his tips about the Curry gang’s involvement in the inadvertent killing of a 13-year old boy led the FBI to evidence of high-level corruption and obstruction of justice in the Detroit Police Department.
At the same time, Wershe was learning the finer points of slinging dope from the federal and local narcs assigned to fight the drug scourge. Detroit narcs assigned to a local/federal drug task force let young Wershe keep the drugs he bought with law enforcement money in drug houses in the inner city. Wershe wasn’t a drug user, but he was dazzled by the money to be made peddling cocaine.
Eventually Wershe became too hot and the FBI dropped him as an informant. By then the kid was a school drop-out accustomed to living life on informant money and the profits of the drugs he sold on the side. He made the bad choice to become a drug wholesaler to Detroit’s crack cocaine retailers. It was a short-lived career. Less than a year after he started his quest to become a “weight man” Wershe was busted by the Detroit police with about eight kilos of cocaine. Hysteria about drugs had prompted Michigan to enact one of the harshest criminal drug laws in the country. Anyone caught with over 650 grams of cocaine faced a mandatory life prison term. A jury convicted Wershe and he was sent to prison for life.
But even in prison Wershe continued to help the FBI. He had had a torrid affair with Cathy Volsan Curry after Johnny Curry went to prison on drug charges. As a result, he was able to reach out to her from prison and arrange a dinner meeting with an undercover FBI agent posing as one of Wershe’s previous “connects” in Miami. The resulting undercover sting operation led to the conviction of Cathy Volsan Curry’s father and about a dozen Detroit-area cops who thought they were getting paid to guard drug and cash shipments arriving in the city.
This is how Wershe wound up in the federal protection prison system. In 2003 he had a sham parole hearing which featured accusations of interference in Wershe’s case by Detroit’s mayor Young, corruption in the prosecutor’s office and testimony by a DEA agent based on information from another informant who was sent for prison for repeatedly lying in court and in front of a federal grand jury.
Corruption in the Criminal Justice System
Eventually it became apparent the criminal justice “system” in Michigan had it out for Richard J. Wershe, Jr. “He told on the wrong people,” is how Ralph Musilli, his longtime attorney, put it.
Finally, in 2017, due to long-running legal fights by his attorneys, the State of Michigan granted Wershe a second parole hearing. This one was much different than the first one. The Michigan Parole Board voted unanimously to life his life prison sentence. But the State of Florida had a “hold” on him to serve time for his guilty-plea conviction there in the car scam. Wershe went from a Michigan prison to a Florida prison.
Throughout his time in prison Wershe was regarded as what some would call a model prisoner. He continued his exemplary behavior in prison in Florida. The staff of the Commission on Offender Review recommended Wershe be given clemency.
At a recent session of the Florida Clemency Board, Wershe’s bid for early release was considered. Two former Detroit FBI agents testified in his behalf. But Florida’s new attorney general and a member of the panel, Ashley Moody, made it clear she believes Wershe should serve his sentence in Florida. Moody’s husband is a DEA agent and elected officials who take a tough-on-crime position win votes in Florida.
Two weeks ago, the Clemency panel sent a letter to Wershe’s attorney denying his plea for clemency. No reason was given.
As a result, Wershe will remain behind bars. He’s due for release in October of 2020.
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