Informant America

The Latest on Rick Wershe

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:17:00 +0000

As many of you know, I've been hard at work preparing my new book for release. Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs will be available for sale on June 25th as an e-book and paperback through Amazon. The paperback can be ordered through Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

I have a new website called vincewade.net. I invite you to check it out.

To get the latest on Rick read the blog post under What's New.

Here is the link: Rick "White Boy Rick" Wershe, Jr. May Have A New Chance at Freedom

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

About My Book - Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 08:01:00 +0000

This blog is going on hiatus for a while.

As some readers know, I’ve been working on a book about the 46-year, trillion-dollar policy failure we call the War on Drugs. The central figure in this sorry tale is Richard J. Wershe, Jr., known in repeated media smears as White Boy Rick. What happened to him has happened over and over in this criminal justice fiasco.

Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs is a down-in-the-trenches look at our national failure to stop the relentless flow of illegal drugs and how people like Richard Wershe, Jr. became victims in this lost cause.

Rick Wershe, Jr. is a Prisoner of War, and he has been, going on thirty years.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

He admits he screwed up by trying to become a cocaine wholesaler. But it was law enforcement that introduced him to this dirty nether world in the first place. They taught him how to sling dope and inform on people and when his whispers about powerful people got too hot, they dumped him. As a juvenile with no parental supervision, he made the stupid decision to join the people he had been telling on. When he got caught, powerful people in the criminal justice system made sure he stayed buried alive in prison. As his lawyer has often said, Rick told on the wrong people.

The Informant America blog has recounted the Rick Wershe, Jr. story in great detail, but Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs shows how he became a soldier, then a prisoner in this losing war that has been based on government lies and false claims of numerous “victories.” The book explores the extent of the failure of the War on Drugs. Rick Wershe, Jr. is one example.

This country has been waging a “war” on the sale and use of mind-altering substances since the middle of the 1800s. For a while, we called it Prohibition. It didn’t work then and it isn’t working now. The government has flat-out lied for years through successive Presidencies and Congresses about “progress” and “victories” in the War on Drugs.

I will be developing a website for the book and it will offer a wide range of information about Rick Wershe and the War on Drugs. These blog posts will be in an archive on that website.

Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs will go on sale in 2018.

***

In the meantime, Rick Wershe, through his family and friends, is trying to do right by the community, to give back after causing so much pain during his brief time as a dope slinger.

His holiday food drive continues to be a success. His lifelong pal, Dave Majkowski, reported the fall food drive for the needy collected over $3-thousand in donations, which were used to buy hundreds of pounds of ground beef, chicken, milk, eggs and other badly needed food items for the hungry. Dave says the food drive will likely resume in the New Year. You can stay up to speed on this by regularly checking the Free Richard Wershe,Jr. Facebook page. Or you can donate directly to Rick’s food drive for the needy by contacting Pamela Dickerson at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 13031 Chandler Park Dr., Detroit, MI 48213. The telephone number at the church is: (313) 821-2380.

A small portion of the food for the needy purchased with your donations to the Rick Wershe, Jr. food drive. (Photo: Courtesy Free Richard Wershe, Jr.-Facebook)

***

One last note for now:

Rick has been moved to a new “facility” in Florida. He’s now at the Putnam prison in East Palatka, Florida. It’s about 60 miles south of Jacksonville in the northeast section of Florida.

Here’s how to write to him. Be sure to include his inmate number on the envelope and at the top of your letter or note:

Richard J. Wershe, Jr.

No.K70365

Putnam Correctional Institution

128 Yelvington Road

East Palatka, Florida 32131-2112

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

A Long Letter from Rick—Third and Final Part

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 08:01:00 +0000

Communicating with Rick Wershe, Jr. is more difficult, now that he is doing time in a prison in Florida. In late October he sent me a long letter to share with the many readers of Informant America. He knows people are interested to hear how he is doing. The last blog post and the one before that covered other topics from Rick’s letter. Before concluding his observations about life in a Florida prison, I have to do a correction.

I made a mistake. In the last Informant America blog post (A Long Letter from Rick—Part 2) I got one thing wrong. I was explaining that the Florida Department of Corrections appears totally focused on punishment, as opposed to corrections, that is, in correcting criminal behavior and trying to rehabilitate inmates so they can be productive members of society. Apparently, that’s a namby-pamby idea in the Sunshine State.

Here’s a portion of what I wrote:

You can learn a lot about the crime and punishment attitudes of each state by doing an Internet search of their “Corrections” Department websites.

Allow me to show you an example of what I’m talking about. If you think Rick Wershe is being wussy in his complaining about the Florida Department of Corrections, I invite you to do the following Google search:

Fire up Google and enter the following: Florida Department of Corrections Photos.

The first thing you get is this:

to High Resolution Images - Florida Department ofCorrections

Click on it. It will take you to a page of “high resolution” images of—Death Row. You will find 23 images—all related to executing prisoners.

I included a “high resolution” image of a death row gurney and wrote it was from Florida’s gas chamber. A reader who sounds like he may be one of the Florida prison guards wrote to me to set me straight.

Florida's "Execution Chamber 1" (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

“Yo Vinnie, I get that your up there in age but that is no excuse not to check your facts before making the State of Florida sound like some backwards third world country when it comes to applying the dp. Specifically, there is No Gas Chamber. Condemned inmates can choose between the electric chair (no one has done such yet this century) or the preferred lethal injection method.”

So, I stand corrected.

Before I ”…make Florida sound like some backwards third world country when it comes to applying the “dp” (death penalty)…”, the photo of the gurney with the wrist and ankle straps to keep an inmate’s limbs from flailing around during the throes of death should be noted as a gurney for lethal injection, not gas.

Restraints on a Florida Death Row gurney (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Allow me to try to make my point again. Apparently, some people didn’t get it.

Here’s a state “Corrections” department which chooses to feature “high resolution” images of their death chamber when you go searching for photos of their prison system.

No photos of education classes. No photos of inmate intramural sports. Nothing to show rehabilitation. Nothing to showcase “corrections.” Just death row. In high resolution, don’tcha know.

If you work at it, you can find other Florida Department of Corrections photos of guards and their attack dogs who have won competition trophies and a photo or two of guards in full battle gear, ready to kick ass and take names.

So, to the reader who wants me to get my facts straight—okay. Your death row strap-down gurney is for lethal injection, not gas. Glad to know Florida doesn’t run its prisons like some third-world country.

On to the last comments from Rick’s letter...

Rick Wershe is classified as a minimum-security inmate, a guy who doesn’t cause trouble. But he’s not in what civilians would think of as a minimum-security prison:

"Even though I am a minimum-security inmate, I am in a unit with lifers and guys doing 100’s of years," Wershe writes.

In the prison culture, he writes, this isn't a good mix: "You have to watch yourself at all times, especially when they know you are only doing 30 months or so."

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that some guy who’s in the joint for life and who has nothing to lose may try to cause trouble for—and with—a guy who’s a short-timer.

“An inmate with a short sentence does far different time than a lifer,” Wershe said.

“That’s one thing I never let myself become. I always planned on getting out, so I never let prison take over my life as so many do. It’s one of the very sad parts of prison, when you just give up and let this become your life and your world.”

Rick Wershe writes he is trying to keep a positive attitude:

“Just hoping for better times in the near future and hoping I can get moved to a minimum-security place and be around others who are on their way home and don’t want to get in any trouble.”

He adds: “All I want to do is do whatever time I have to do and get on with my life.”

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

A Long Letter from Rick – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:01:00 +0000

In the last blog installment of Informant America it was noted that I received a long letter from Rick Wershe who is now in prison in Florida. Communication with Rick, or any inmate in the Florida prison system, is not easy. Rick has spent nearly 30 years behind bars, most of them in Michigan. He says the Florida Corrections System is real culture shock. This blog continues with quotes from Rick’s letter…

Rick Wershe wrote his multi-page letter to me standing up. He had no choice. There is no place to sit in his two-man cell. “There’s not anywhere in the cell to sit down and write a letter,” he writes. “I stand up and use the top bunk to write on.” Eating meals in the cell is a challenge, too. “You stand up and eat off your tray or sit on the floor with the tray on your lap,” Wershe writes.

In a previous blog I wrote that prison food in Florida is nothing to write home about. It provides daily nutritional needs and that’s about it. Like prisons everywhere, Florida has “canteens” where prisoner with a little change in their pocket can buy snacks or simple foods like packaged soup. “The prices down here for a lot of things are more than double,” Wershe writes. “A soup in Michigan costs 34 cents. In Florida prisons, it’s 70 cents. (The cost of) Everything is 50% to 100% or more and here they have no paying jobs like in Michigan or with the Feds.”

What he’s referring to are paying work details in other state and federal prisons. Paid work details accomplish several things. They give inmates something useful to do with their time. It gives them a means of acquiring modest amounts of money they can spend inside on something they want. This mimics the world outside, where you work to earn money to spend. Imagine that. Yet, Florida doesn’t offer that constructive opportunity for prison inmates.

Someone reading this might sarcastically think, ‘Aw. Too bad for those poor criminals.’ That kind of hard-ass crime-and-punishment thinking might make some macho men feel better, but it comes down to a bigger question: do we want convicted criminals to do time behind bars and nothing more, or do we want to at least try to educate them in subtle but daily ways about acceptable ways to get a long in life on the outside?

You can learn a lot about the crime and punishment attitudes of each state by doing an Internet search of their “Corrections” Department websites.

Fire up Google and enter the following: Florida Department of Corrections Photos.

The first thing you get is this:

to High Resolution Images - Florida Department of Corrections

Click on it. It will take you to a page of “high resolution” images of—Death Row. You will find 23 images—all related to executing prisoners.

This is Florida's gas chamber, which they proudly feature as the first photos you find if you try to find images about their prison system. (Photos: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

This is a cell where Florida inmates on Death Row wait to die. (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

There are 16 views of the Florida gas chamber, six views of Death row cells where inmates wait to die and one image of an electric chair. That’s it. That’s all the Florida Department of Corrections offers Internet visitors who would like to see images of what their “Corrections” system is all about.

Good luck finding other images. If you dig around you can find some. Like this one, celebrating trophies won by guards who work with attack and tracking dogs:

(Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Bloodhounds for tracking escaped prisoners seem to be a favorite photo subject for the Florida Department of “Corrections”:

(Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

But as the photo above shows, the Florida Department of “Corrections” doesn’t just rely on dogs. They are ready for deadly combat with inmates, too:

Yes. Yes. They have to be ready for trouble because some of their guests are troublemakers. But it tells us a lot that Florida emphasizes photos of Death Row and attack dogs and assault troops in what might be called their public relations. It tells us that concepts like "corrections" and "rehabilitation" don't mean much in their prison system.

There’s a bit more in Rick Wershe’s letter from prison and I’ll share it in the next post.

***

Here’s how to write to Rick Wershe if you are inclined to do so. Be sure to include his inmate number in the address and on the head of the letter itself:

Mr. Richard J. Wershe, Jr.

No. K70365

Columbia Correctional Institution

216 SE Corrections Way, Lake City, FL 32025

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

A long letter from Rick

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Richard Wershe, Jr. is in a Florida prison serving the remainder of a jail term for a conviction in a car fraud and theft case. He was transferred to Florida after the Michigan Parole Board granted him a parole from a life prison term for a non-violent drug conviction when he was 18. He spent 29 1/2 years behind bars for the drug case. Wershe had been an FBI informant and he told on the wrong people, politically powerful people, who fought to keep him in prison until he died. He cost them a lot of money by telling the FBI about them. Communication with Wershe in Florida is difficult but recently he sent a lengthy letter…

I have not been able to communicate directly with Rick Wershe since mid-July. Communicating with inmates in the Florida prison system is difficult, even for defense attorneys.

When Wershe was assigned to a prison in Florida and I had an actual address, I sent him a letter. He sent a reply letter that runs several pages. It will be the basis for several Informant America blogs. In my letter to Rick I told him many people remain interested in his story. As of this weekend, the number of page views for Informant America numbers close to 344-thousand. The previous post, about Rick’s new “home” in Florida had over 65-hundred views.

I explained to Rick that people want to know what’s up with him. So, I’m going to quote from his letter because he knows people are interested.

This is Rick Wershe's Florida inmate photo (Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Rick is in prison culture shock and he doesn’t mind saying so. “My new residence,” Rick writes, “Wow. Culture shock! No one should ever complain about a MI (Michigan) prison again!”

Wershe spent years at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee on the western side of Michigan. There, he was in a security unit separated from the rest of the inmate population. He was in there with others who had been informants in important cases or they had been police officers or prosecutors or judges who might be in physical danger in the general inmate population.

Wershe had his own private cell. It was small, but it was his space. He had a little TV just for himself. Oaks has a restricted cable TV system but Rick could choose to watch what he wanted on the available channels, when he wanted. Not so in Florida.

The prison where he is locked up in Florida has “2-man cells with nothing in them, 2 bunks and 2 metal footlockers (plus) a metal sink and toilet.” He says both are old and “not very clean.” His letter continues, “Put it this way—in the last 29 ½ years I did (in prison), I have never lived like this.”

Most inmates in Florida prisons live in dorms. They have a bed and a footlocker and nothing else. This is not the prison where Rick Wershe is housed. (Photo-Florida Dept. of Corrections.

As for watching TV, there’s no private set in the cell. Wershe has to go to a “TV room” and watch one TV shared by “90 guys.” He says about half the inmates in his unit go to the TV room to watch the news, sports and maybe a few network TV shows. “Sure miss my own cell and own TV, no matter how small it was!” Rick writes.

Rick has had some difficulty just walking around. “The State of Florida issues you shoes that are like those “Croc sandals.” Inmates have to walk around in them until they can buy gym shoes, which takes about 2 months or so.”

Inmates have a dilemma. There aren’t work details where they can earn money, so accumulating cash for things like gym shoes can be a challenge. No, you can’t help Rick by sending him a pair. He has to wear prison-issue garb. Still, he’s anxious to get some canvas gym shoes because the prison-issue croc sandals, “made my feet swell walking in them, but you have no choice.”

There’s more in Rick’s letter and it will be shared in the next Informant America post.

***

If you want to send Rick a letter he would undoubtedly like to hear from you. But be aware the prison staff carefully reads all mail: going out and coming in. It would be wise to keep that in mind when writing a letter. Don’t forget to include his inmate number in the address:

Mr. Richard J. Wershe, Jr.

No. K70365

Columbia Correctional Institution

216 SE Corrections Way, Lake City, FL 32025

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Florida classifies Rick Wershe as a "minimum custody" inmate

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Rick Wershe is settling in at Columbia prison in northern Florida, to serve the remainder of his time on a car fraud and theft conviction. With “good time” calculations, it is believed he has less than two years to serve. In July, the Michigan Parole Board granted him a parole from his life sentence for a non-violent drug conviction when he was a teen.

The State of Florida has concluded Richard J. Wershe, Jr.—known in the media as White Boy Rick—is not a menace to society. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s office once made that outrageous, unsubstantiated claim, but prison authorities in Florida have dismissed it. They have placed Wershe in a low security prison. This follows an extensive review of his record while doing time in Michigan, combined with the nature of the offense in Florida and direct interviews with Rick by Florida corrections staff.

Florida has classified Rick Wershe as a "minimum custody" inmate. (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

When Florida officials examined Wershe’s Michigan prison history, they learned he was not a troublemaker. In fact, he was liked by the Michigan prison staff. Erik Smith, the assistant to the warden at Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee, Michigan, where Wershe was incarcerated for many years, once told me Rick would be classified as a model prisoner, if there were such a thing.

Rick Wershe has always been cooperative with law enforcement. In a way, that’s how he wound up with a life prison term.

For those unfamiliar with his story, here is another summary of the Rick Wershe saga.

He grew up in a dysfunctional family in one of Detroit’s “changing” neighborhoods. He wasn’t a drug user but he was a street-smart kid. He was friendly with the Curry Brothers, a dope-dealing family of interest to the FBI because the leader, Johnny Curry, was engaged to the niece of Detroit’s mayor, Coleman Young.

The FBI recruited Rick Wershe—at age 14—to be a paid informer against the Currys. The young spy was too good at his work. He told the FBI about dope deals, but he also told them about corruption involving Inspector Gil Hill, the head of Detroit Police Homicide and a star in the Eddie Murphy Beverly Hills Cop movies. Hill was viewed by many has a celebrity-hero in the black community. Wershe’s public corruption information about Hill caused a furor within the FBI and Justice Department and the FBI dropped him as a snitch. Wershe decided to try to become a cocaine wholesaler, but he got caught, was tried and convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Rick Wershe was the longest-serving juvenile in Michigan history for a non-violent drug offense. Informant America has documented at great length in previous posts the evidence that suggests politically powerful individuals in the Michigan criminal “justice” system went to great lengths to keep him in prison in retaliation for his cooperation with the FBI regarding drug corruption in Detroit. He was finally paroled this past July.

Wershe is doing time in Florida for a 2006 conviction in a car theft and fraud scheme. Wershe was in a federal prison in Florida in the Witness Security program for his role in an FBI undercover sting operation that resulted in a dozen or so cops going to prison for getting paid to guard what they thought were drug and drug cash shipments.

While in the federal prison, Wershe got in involved in a used car re-sale scheme involving a dozen or so individuals that seemed legitimate, at first. Wershe helped his sister buy used cars in Florida to be re-sold in Michigan at a profit. The money was to help Wershe’s sister and mother with living expenses. It wasn’t long before Wershe learned some of the cars were stolen. He continued to participate in the scheme, anyway. He and the others got caught and that’s why he’s in Florida now.

Wershe is in the Columbia Correctional Institution, adjacent to the 200-thousand-acre Osceola National Forest, about 50 miles west of Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo: Florida Department of Corrections)

Wershe is in the Columbia Correctional Facility in Lake City, about 50 miles west of Jacksonville. There are about a thousand inmates housed at Columbia.

Florida prisons favor open dormitories instead of private cells. In Michigan, Wershe had a private cell. In Columbia, the housing ranges from two-man cells to “open bay” dormitories.

In response to questions about Rick Wershe, the Florida Department of Corrections replied: "Inmate Wershe is assigned to work detail. Work detail assignments can vary from laundry to food service, inside grounds maintenance, etc."

Like the Michigan prison system, the Florida Department of Corrections is reluctant to go in to specific details about Rick Wershe's life behind bars "due to security concerns."

Wershe’s release date is officially listed as April 20, 2021 but his inmate profile notes: "Release Date subject to change pending gain time award, gain time forfeiture, or review. A 'TO BE SET' Release Date is to be established pending review."

“Gain time” is Florida’s term for a sentence reduction for good behavior. Rick Wershe’s “gain time” will be subject to various factors, but mostly it will be based on his behavior behind bars.

He has a shot at a “clemency” early release. Clemency petitions have to be submitted to a board that includes the governor and state attorney general. By all accounts, clemency and pardons are rare in Florida. But as Rick and his supporters note, it’s worth a try.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe sent to his Florida ‘place of residence’

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 07:01:00 +0000

The State of Florida has finally figured out where to imprison Richard “White Boy Rick” Wershe to serve his time in his auto fraud/theft case, committed while he was in a Florida federal Witness Security prison. In July, the Michigan Parole Board granted him parole after nearly 30 years in prison for a non-violent drug crime from his teen years. He’s now in a state prison in Northern Florida.

The Columbia Correctional Institution is a Florida state prison in Lake City, about 50 miles west of Jacksonville. It is to be home for Richard J. Wershe, Jr. for the foreseeable future. Due to his background and notorious reputation as an FBI informant, he is in what Florida officials call a “protective management” unit.

Wershe has not been happy since his arrival in Florida several weeks ago. More on that to follow.

Rick Wershe's Florida inmate photo (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

He was granted parole in Michigan on July 18^th, but Florida had a “hold” on him, so he remained in the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee until arrangements could be made to transport him. That took bureaucratic time. He dodged one nightmare when Florida arranged to have the U.S. Marshal’s Service move him, instead of using a dreaded private, for-profit prison van transport service.

It took several weeks but Rick Wershe got to Florida by way of the federal prison in Milan, Michigan and a county jail in Oklahoma City as a slow-service passenger aboard “Con Air.” That's the nickname for the Marshal’s Service air transport wing. The Marshal’s service will fly an inmate from A to B, but any given prisoner might lay over in a lockup in between for a week or so as the air service shuffles inmates to maximize the number of passengers aboard each flight of Con Air.

Wershe was able to dodge Hurricane Irma. He was in Oklahoma City when it struck. When he arrived in Florida, he was taken to an intake and medical facility for “evaluation.”

Florida officials knew Wershe was somewhat notorious and that he had helped the FBI put a number of criminals in prison. They decided to protect him. Their effort to protect him made him miserable. They put him in “lockdown”, which is what most people on the outside would regard as solitary confinement. In prison, lockdown is usually regarded as heavy-duty punishment.

Rick Wershe is a people person. He’s gregarious. He talks to people. Sometimes, too much for his own good. In lockdown, he was isolated from the other inmates.

Now he’s been assigned to a “protective management unit” at the Columbia Correctional prison which is between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, near where Interstates 75 and 10 intersect. It’s in the small town of Lake City, population about two thousand. One of the features of Lake City is Alligator Lake Park. The prison is east of town, adjacent to the Osceola National Forest, known for swamps, alligators and poisonous snakes.

Presumably, Wershe will be able to mingle with other inmates who turned informant or with convicted police officers, judges and other public officials who might be at risk in the general prison population.

Aerial view of Florida's Columbia Correctional Institution (Photo: Google Maps)

Florida’s Colombia Correctional Institution is not a “country club” prison. Far from it. Florida’s prisons are badly understaffed and underfunded. Tensions are high in many prisons. At Columbia, a mentally ill inmate was found dead under mysterious circumstances in 2016, a day after a corrections officer had been stabbed. The year before, two guards were fired and charged with brutality against inmates.

Florida St. Rep. David Richardson found conditions at the prison where Rick Wershe is incarcerated "horrific."

Florida State Representative David Richardson of Miami is what you might call a one-man advocate for improved prison conditions in Florida. Last December he visited Columbia, Rick Wershe’s new “home” and the legislator declared the conditions were “horrific—unfit for human habitation.” Richardson had visited 60 Florida prisons and talked with hundreds of inmates.

He found toilets that malfunctioned, and no hot water for inmates to make instant soup or coffee they had purchased at the prison canteen.

“People might think this is no big deal — so you can’t make a cup of coffee — but it’s the little things that tend to be causation of unrest and riots,” Richardson told the Miami Herald. “It can be the coffee one day, then the showers and they all build up until the next thing you’ve got is a riot situation.”

How long will Rick Wershe be in this place? That’s not yet clear. It’s possible he could be there two years, but there are “good time” calculations that could make his time in Columbia shorter. And there is a slim chance he might be considered by clemency by Florida's law-and-order governor. For Rick Wershe, whatever his release date, it can’t be soon enough.

***
If you want to send Rick Wershe a card, note or letter, here is the address. Be sure to include his inmate number in the address:

Mr. Richard J. Wershe, Jr.
No. K70365
Columbia Correctional Institution

216 SE Corrections Way, Lake City, FL 32025

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe is in Florida to do his time

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Richard Wershe, Jr., the longest-serving Michigan prison inmate sentenced as a juvenile for a non-violent drug crime, is finally in Florida serving what remains of a five-year prison sentence in an auto fraud and theft scheme from 2004. Wershe was paroled in July by Michigan authorities, after serving nearly 30 years of a life sentence. Critics say the repeated refusal to grant Wershe parole until this year was a local justice system vendetta for helping the FBI prosecute politically-connected drug dealers.

Rick Wershe, the guy the media loves to call White Boy Rick, is in the Florida sunshine, at least during prison yard time. He’s looking forward to a different kind of sunshine, the sunshine of freedom, perhaps in a few months. The U.S. Marshal’s service was contracted to transport Wershe from Michigan to Florida. It took several weeks, even though he traveled by “Con Air”, the nickname for a prisoner air transport service operated by the Marshal’s Service. Wershe was in lock-ups in Milan, Michigan and Oklahoma City from mid-August until his arrival in Florida last week.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr.-Florida inmate photo (Photo-Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Wershe told Kevin Dietz of WDIV-TV, Detroit that he’s “doing great” and is looking forward to complete freedom for the first time in his adult life.

Rick Wershe was recruited by the FBI at age 14 to become the youngest Bureau informant in the War on Drugs. He was not a drug user but he knew the Curry Brothers, an east side gang that was a target of investigation, because, the leader, Johnny Curry, was engaged to Cathy Volsan, the niece of then-Detroit mayor Coleman Young. Mayor Young had been an FBI investigative target most of his life.

The teen informant did a good job, with his late father collecting cash payments from the FBI for his son’s undercover work. Young Wershe told the FBI about corruption involving former Detroit Homicide Inspector and later City Council President Gil Hill, now deceased.

The late Gil Hill, on the left, in FBI surveillance photo from Operation Backbone, an undercover sting operation that lured police officers in to protecting drug shipments and cash being transported for money laundering. (FBI photo)

The FBI dropped Rick Wershe as an informant and he made a decision to try to become a drug wholesaler—and got caught by the Detroit Police. He was sentenced at age 18 to life in prison under a harsh Michigan law that has since been discarded.

While in prison, Rick Wershe, Jr. helped the FBI again, this time in an undercover sting operation that nailed a dozen police officers and Mayor Young’s brother-in-law, the late Willie Volsan.

The late Willie Clyde Volsan, the brother-in-law of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Volsan was tried, convicted and sent to prison in the Operation Backbone undercover investigation. Volsan found police officers willing to guard fake drug and cash shipments for money in an FBI undercover sting operation. (FBI photo)

Wershe was placed in the federal Witness Security (WitSec) program for prison inmates who help develop big cases. He did time in federal prisons in Arizona and Florida.

While in the federal Witness Security program in Florida, Wershe got involved with selling used cars from prison. Some of the cars were stolen, but Wershe continued to participate in the scheme, anyway.

When charges were brought against him, Wershe was told his mother and sister would be prosecuted, too, because they had helped him with the car scheme. It was a dubious threat, but to protect his mother and sister, Wershe pleaded guilty as charged.

Wershe got jammed with a prison sentence in Florida that was structured to run consecutive to his life sentence in Michigan in the drug case. His Florida court-appointed attorney did not argue for a concurrent sentence. Thus, when Wershe was granted parole in Michigan, he still faced time in Florida. He’s doing that time now and looking forward to the day he can be truly free.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

No, Rick is NOT in Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Followers of the misadventures of Rick Wershe are aware he was on his way to Florida to serve more prison time in an auto theft and fraud case after Michigan authorities granted him a parole from his life sentence. He had served nearly 30 years of a life prison sentence for possession of cocaine in a non-violent case that began when he was 17. Is Rick Wershe in harm’s way regarding Hurricane Irma? The answer is, no.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. is not in Florida.

He’s not in any danger from a hurricane. He is in another state, not in the path of the hurricane, sitting in a federal lock-up, awaiting transport to Florida when it’s safe.

Wershe is in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s service. Transporting prisoners to and from courts is one the agency’s primary duties. This includes moving them from prison to prison.

Rick Wershe is a state prisoner and states needing to move an inmate can contract with private, for-profit ground transport services or they can contract, on a prisoner-by-prisoner basis, with the U.S. Marshal’s Service. That’s what Florida has done in the Rick Wershe case.

For Wershe, all things considered, his situation is much better than it might have been.

Wershe was released from Michigan custody to the custody of U.S. Marshals on August 22^nd. That same day he was transported to the federal prison in Milan, Michigan, outside Ann Arbor, where he was housed for over a week.

Wershe is, of course, a high-profile prisoner due to all the publicity surrounding his case and the movie that’s being made about his story. For his safety, Wershe was held in an isolation unit. His lawyer, Ralph Musilli, got to visit with him for an hour or so. Rick reported he was well-treated. He also appreciated the “upgrade” in food. Federal prisons generally have better food service than state prisons. This is particularly true regarding Florida.

After his stay in Milan, Wershe was flown to another state to await another flight to Florida. He was flown aboard a passenger aircraft that is part of a fleet known as Con Air. That’s short for Convict Air, which is a civilian nickname for what is formally known as the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation system, or JPATS. The transport service was featured in a 1997 Nicolas Cage action movie. The plane used in the movie is not part of the JPATS fleet. Con Air sounds cooler than JPATS, but the U.S. government isn't known for cool names.

This is one of the prisoner transport aircraft in the JPATS fleet. Rick Wershe, Jr. may travel to Florida aboard a plane like this one. (Photo: U.S. Marshal's Service)

Flying, as opposed to bouncing around endlessly in a prisoner van, is much more humane and much-preferred. Wershe was flown from Michigan to another state, where he is housed in another federal prison awaiting a second flight to Florida. He may be there awhile.

The State of Florida spent much of last week scrambling to move state prison inmates from at-risk lockups to safer, more secure prisons. As of the weekend, Florida had evacuated 31 of its 143 prisons. It is doubtful Florida will be accepting transport prisoners any time soon.

No matter where Wershe is housed, every day since August 22^nd counts as time served toward his Florida sentence. The food and facilities are generally much better in the federal prison system as opposed to state prisons, so for Rick Wershe, sitting in a federal prison awaiting transfer to Florida is not a bad deal.

Still, this process requires some adjustment. Rick is now housed in a cell with two other inmates. In Michigan, he had a private cell for years. He has reported the other inmates are nice young men.

Wershe’s arrival in Florida is up to Mother Nature. Con Air will fly to Florida when it’s safe. In the meantime, he is doing alright—and waiting out the storm.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

On the Road to…Somewhere

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Last Tuesday—August 22^nd—without fanfare the U.S. Marshal’s Service picked up Richard Wershe, Jr. at Michigan’s Oaks Correctional Facility for transport to Florida to begin serving what’s left of a five-year prison sentence there for his guilty plea in an auto fraud and theft scheme when he was in federal prison in that state in 2004—05. When he will arrive in Florida is unknown.

Rick Wershe, Jr. - On the Road Again (MDOC Photo)

As of this weekend, Rick Wershe is somewhere between here and there. He’s actually housed for an indeterminate time in a federal prison, and he may see the insides of several federal facilities before he winds up in Florida. Being transported by the U.S. Marshal Service is no picnic, but it beats bouncing from state to state in a dilapidated van operated by a privately-owned, for-profit “extradition service.” Here’s what happened:

Officials at Michigan’s Oaks prison were in contact with Florida officials about transporting Wershe to the Sunshine state. There were several options, including the possibility of flying him from Michigan to Florida. That didn’t happen.

The U.S. Marshal’s Service has a lot of experience moving prisoners from lockups to court houses, from local jails to federal prisons and from prison to prison. Their services are available to state prison systems, if needed—for an established price. That is, Florida can pay them to get a prisoner like Wershe and bring him to them.

Apparently, there was some back and forth about Rick’s past as a federal informant, his notoriety in the media and the fact he has had some health issues in the past that might require urgent attention if he’s in transit. All of these things may have been a factor in the Florida decision to have the Marshal’s Service transport Wershe to their custody.

Unlike the private for-profit transport services, the Marshal’s Service moves prisoners at its own pace. They may park an inmate in a federal prison facility for a few days or even a few weeks as they juggle vehicles and staff and move prisoners on a timetable and travel route that is convenient for them.

The State of Florida doesn’t much care, as long as he gets there.

For Rick Wershe, it has no impact on his prison time because transit days count toward time-served. In custody is in custody, no matter where your body happens to be.

So however long it takes the U.S. Marshals to move him from Michigan to Florida, those days count toward his time-served in the Florida case.

When Wershe gets to Florida, he will be in a different environment, and that doesn’t mean the weather. Speaking of weather, most Florida prisons are not air conditioned. Only 11 of the state’s 48 prisons have some air-conditioned units.

His first stop will be an “intake” center. There he will be formally interviewed by the staff and evaluated. This process will determine where he is housed, where he will spend his time while serving his sentence. For now, no one knows which facility he will be in. Florida has prisons, “annexes”, “work camps” and the like spread all over the state, housing over 99,000 inmates.

The Florida prison system is vast and has facilities all across the state. (Map: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

In Michigan, Rick Wershe was in a special unit because of his notoriety as an FBI informant. Bluntly, there was concern for his safety in a culture where “snitches get stitches.”

His unit at Oaks was segregated from the rest of the inmate population. Convicted police officers, judges and other informants were his neighbors. They ate together, exercised together and Rick had a one-man cell. He never had any trouble incidents.

Inmate housing in most Florida prisons is dormitory-style. (Photo: Florida Dept. of Corrections)

Florida favors dormitory-style prisons. That’s not to say Rick Wershe will end up living in a prison dorm, but it is the norm in the Florida corrections system.

In Oaks, the inmates had restricted cable TV. That is, some channels were blocked but many cable channels were available to the inmates. No such luck in Florida.

As the Florida Department of Corrections states on its web site:

“There are no correctional facilities with cable television. Television reception in our prisons is from the antennae only.”

CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ESPN and Comedy Central are not options.

While Rick is in prison in Florida, he won’t starve but he’s not likely to be sending out letters raving about the cuisine, either.

Florida has “canteens” where inmates can get vending machine junk food such as Pop Tarts, pudding cups, Velveeta chili and cheese cups, pretzels, chips and similar fare. But they also have three regular meals per day which are carefully calibrated for caloric content, minimum daily nutrients and so forth. There’s no mention of what the stuff tastes like.

Breakfast is pretty much the same every day. The options include eggs, grits, potatoes, biscuits or bread, one piece of fresh fruit, coffee, one little pat of margarine, one little packet of jelly, one packet of sugar and something called a “breakfast beverage.”

A typical lunch is a modest portion of “torta” meat, which is ground or chopped meat like you’d find in a taco, a serving of rice, dried beans, some shredded cheese, a piece of bread and a “marinated vegetable medley” with a beverage, such as tea.

Dinner might be a piece of turkey ham, cheesy grits, a “marinated vegetable medley”, a piece of bread or a biscuit, a pat of margarine and a beverage.

The food list above was obtained from the Florida Department of Corrections web site. The menu doesn’t change much week in and week out.

The Informant America blog will keep you updated as more is learned about Rick Wershe’s new, temporary life, in Florida.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe is on his way to Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 16:31:00 +0000

Rick Wershe is on his way to Florida to begin serving the remainder of his sentence in a car theft case.

He was removed this morning (Tuesday, August 22) from the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee, Michigan.

No details were immediately available on where he will be imprisoned in Florida or when he is expected to arrive.

Wershe was paroled by the Michigan Parole Board last month after serving 29-and-a-half years of a life sentence for a conviction in 1988 for possession of drugs in excess of 650 grams.

His case has attracted national attention because he was recruited by the FBI at age 14 to become a paid informer, only to be dropped and left on his own. Wershe turned to the only trade he knew, the one law enforcement narcs had taught him. He tried to become a cocaine wholesaler but got caught. His case became a media sensation. He was smeared in the media over the years as "White Boy Rick", a drug kingpin and drug baron, even though there's no evidence to support those claims.

Wershe's attorney, Ralph Musilli, has described him as a political prisoner because "he told on the wrong people and he cost them a lot of money." He helped the FBI indict and convict corrupt police officers and Willie Volsan, the brother-in-law of former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe is Afraid—He has Good Reason to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 13 Aug 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Last month, Richard J. Wershe, Jr., better known in the media as White Boy Rick, was at long last granted a parole from his Michigan life sentence for a non-violent drug conviction when he was a teenager. But he still has several years to serve in Florida in a car theft/fraud case where he pled guilty out of fear prosecutors would charge his mother and sister because they helped him in the car case. A Florida judge has turned down his petition for a three-day furlough which would allow Wershe to turn himself in. Now he must endure a potentially perilous trip to Florida on a private, for-profit prisoner transport bus. It could be the bus ride from hell.

Eight guys in a filthy caged bus. A bottle of water to drink each day. A fast-food sandwich three times a day, no place to urinate or defecate. No place to sleep. No meds, even if they are required. It would take too much time and time is money in the for-profit “extradition services” business. No stops for medical care. Rolling from one jail to another, picking up and dropping off prisoners, day and night. Some of the passengers aren’t even convicts. They are innocent-until-proven-guilty citizens who have been arrested in one place but wanted on charges in another place.

This is what Rick Wershe is facing in his transition from a prison in Michigan to a prison in Florida. Ever since his parole he’s been begging to be released on temporary furlough—three days—which would allow him to make his own way to Florida. A Florida judge has said, No.

Rick knows what these transport services are like. He had to have an operation in Lansing a few years ago and he feared he would die. Not from the surgery. From the ride to and from the Lansing hospital.

The prisoner transport racket is one most Americans know nothing about. But it’s real, and it can be deadly.

The New York Times and the Marshall Project, a non-profit that encourages journalism about the many outrages and inequities of the criminal justice system, teamed on a harrowing, in-depth report on the prisoner transport business.

Michigan's Bridge magazine did a piece about horror stories in the Great Lakes State involving private prisoner vans.

This is the body of William Weintraub, a 47-year old former physics professor charged with making threats against a newspaper over an article he disputed. He died from a perforated ulcer. He had complained of stomach pain but his complaints were mocked and ignored by the transport crew. No charges were brought against the transport company. (Photo-Georgia Bureau of Investigation)

Prisoners riding in these rolling rat holes are regarded as sub-human. Their needs are inconsequential. They are bodies to be moved from A to B. The companies get paid between 75 cents and $1.50 per mile per prisoner. There's profit incentive to cram as many prisoners as possible in a single van.

Sanitation facilities are typically non-existent. Prisoners are told to pee in their empty water bottles. Some wind up defecating on the floor of the prisoner van or on themselves. There’s no time to stop for such things.

The transport crews take turns driving, often non-stop, 24-hours-a-day. Crew fatigue is common. So are collisions and accidents. Sometimes guards and prisoners get injured or killed. Hey. It’s the cost of doing business.

This prisoner van crashed in to a semi-trailer at 1:24 in the morning on a highway in Georgia. Two guards and a prisoner were killed. Investigators think the guard who was driving fell asleep at the wheel. (Photo: Greene County, GA. Sheriff's Office)

These shady operators keep getting contracts with state corrections departments and individual jails because they are cheaper than sending sheriff’s deputies to get prisoners who are behind bars in another state.

Twenty-six states, including Michigan and Florida, use these shabby, shoddy “extradition services” as a way of saving taxpayer money. If the inmate’s rights get abused, who cares? This is a nation that’s tough on crime, by golly.

These “corporations” that treat their cargo like scum get sued from time to time. When they lose in court, they just go out of business and pop up as a new corporation, a new bottom feeder of the criminal “justice” system.

It’s hard to say how long Rick Wershe will have to endure an “extradition services” ride.

One man in suburban Los Angeles was arrested for posting an “I Love You” note on Facebook to his 13-year old daughter in violation of a non-contact restraining order in a bitter divorce battle. In Florida. The judge in Florida wanted him returned to face the charge of violating the restraining order.

David Hastings was hauled eight-thousand miles in a zig-zag trip across 31 states for what should have been a 2,600-mile trip. He was wearing nothing but a white paper jail-issue jump suit with his hands and feet shackled. He shared a prisoner van with a total of 33 other prisoners over a period of 15 days. Hastings has a congenital heart condition. He charges he was denied his meds. He thought he was going to die in the van. He wasn't a convict. He was on his way to face charges.

The Florida Department of Corrections will negotiate with the private transport company on when they want Rick Wershe in a Florida lock-up. That will determine how long he will be on this trip through hell.

By the way, the notion of pleading with a Florida judge for mercy is a bitter joke. When Wershe was charged in the Florida case, the state attorney general’s office had a choice of a county where they could bring charges. They selected Martin County, about a hundred miles north of Miami, above West Palm Beach. It is the quintessential law-and-order jurisdiction.

In a conversation a while back, Rick told me the story of when he was brought to Martin County for arraignment on the car case charges. He was placed in the Martin County jail for his court appearance the next day. Rick says a friendly jail matron asked, “What are you in here for, honey?” He told her his story.

“Oh Honey!” she said. “They intend to hang your ass! That’s why they got you here! We got us a hangin’ bench in this county!”

The sympathetic matron didn’t mean hanging in the literal sense. She meant Rick was up against throw-the-book-at-‘em judges.

In Martin County, Florida, the judges have a reputation for liking to punish people. It doesn’t matter who Rick Wershe has for a lawyer. He/she is not likely to find any mercy in a Martin County courtroom.

The ordeal of Richard J. Wershe, Jr. is not over yet.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe’s long ordeal—A few words about a few People

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 07:01:00 +0000

As of this weekend, there is still no word from Florida regarding what they intend to do about Rick Wershe’s prison sentence in a case involving a car theft ring while he was serving time there in the Witness Security program. This week Rick told me if they are going to come get him he wishes they’d do it, so he can fulfill that obligation and be truly free. During this wait-and-see period, Informant America will take a minute to profile some key people in Rick Wershe’s long, long struggle.

Twenty-nine-and-a-half years is a long time by anyone’s reckoning. That’s how long Richard J. Wershe, Jr. has served a life sentence for possession of a large stash of cocaine. He was busted when he was 17-years old. Until his parole this month, he had been Michigan’s longest-serving inmate sentenced as a juvenile in a non-violent drug case.

As Rick says, there are good days and bad days. He’s taken it one day at a time. Several people have helped him do that and they are featured in this blog post.

Let’s stipulate up front that Rick Wershe has had many supporters in his long struggle—too many to list. Informant America, which only deals with the Wershe story, has had over 305-thousand-page views since it began in March of 2015. Clearly, a lot of people are interested in his story. But it hasn’t always been this way. There have been times when Rick has felt totally forgotten, totally alone.

***

One guy who never forgot, who never abandoned Rick through his darkest days, is his childhood friend, Dave Majkowski. They used to shoot at rats in the alleys of Detroit when they were kids. They go back that far.

Roman Wershe, Dave Majkowski, Rick Wershe, Jr.

The photo above is of Rick with his grandfather, Roman Wershe, and his friend, Dave Majkowski. The Majkowski family moved to the suburbs as Detroit “changed” during the 70s and 80s. The Wershe family stayed in Detroit, Rick became an informant for the FBI and his fate was sealed.

Over the years, Majkowski has never stopped believing. He never gave up on his friend, even when things looked hopeless. And things looked hopeless for a l-o-n-g time.

Majkowski has tirelessly operated the Free Rick Wershe Facebook page. It has become the go-to site for people looking for the latest info on Rick Wershe.

But Majkowski has done more than manage a Web page. He’s helped Rick with his holiday food drive for the needy. He’s called and written to politicians, judges, lawyers, you name it. He’s been there when Rick needed someone on the outside to do what needed to be done.

***

Gregg Schwarz has been like a dad to Rick Wershe; more so in many ways, than his biological father.

Schwarz is a retired FBI agent. He got to know Rick at the end of the FBI investigation of the Johnny Curry drug gang.

Schwarz has long believed it wasn’t right for the federal government to use a 14-year old kid as an informant in a dangerous undercover assignment in a drug case, only to abandon him.

After Rick Wershe helped the FBI prosecute the Currys, the government kicked him to the curb—cut off all contact with the kid and let him fend for himself after teaching him how to be a drug dealer.

When Rick Wershe got busted for possession of drugs, the FBI wouldn’t help him. They didn’t go to the Wayne County Prosecutor and explain he got involved with the drug trade while helping them. To do so would require admitting they had used a juvenile as an informant in a risky undercover operation. In order to save face—and careers—they let Rick Wershe be sentenced to life in prison.

Schwarz thought that wasn’t right. He still thinks that way. While he couldn’t overrule the system, he stayed in touch with Rick Wershe on a regular basis for 29 years. He's counseled Rick. He's consoled Rick. Perhaps most important, he's been a true friend by telling Wershe when he isn't thinking straight. He tells Rick Wershe the truth as he sees it. Like Majkowksi, Schwarz has made phone calls, written letters and pestered anyone and everyone who might help.

That’s how I got involved. In the late 80s, when Rick was front-page news, I was working on investigative reporting projects and documentaries for WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 in Detroit. Chris Hansen covered the crime beat and covered Rick’s story.

I became aware of Rick Wershe when I did an investigative series of television reports called Who Killed Damion Lucas? That 5-part series documented how the Detroit Police Department covered up the truth about the killing of a 13-year old boy by members of the Curry drug gang.

The top command of the Detroit Police Department essentially obstructed justice in the Damion Luas case in order to shield Cathy Volsan Curry, the niece of then-Mayor Coleman Young and the wife of drug gang leader Johnny Curry. They tried to frame an innocent man but that case was eventually dropped under pressure from the FBI and the Justice Department.

The key figure in the police obstruction of justice corruption scheme was the late Gil Hill, then the head of Homicide for the police department. He later became a city councilman and the council president. Johnny Curry later admitted he paid Hill $10-thousand to make the homicide investigation go away.

Damion Lucas - A homicide victim who has never had justice.

When I reported the story in 1988, I knew Rick Wershe had played a role, but it wasn’t clear to me until years later just how important his role was. Wershe provided the FBI with critical information which fortified what the feds had picked up on wiretaps in the Curry investigation.

As it turns out, Rick Wershe’s role in the Damion Lucas matter turned out to be his most important contribution as an FBI informer. It revealed police corruption the FBI didn’t know existed until Wershe told them about it.

In the summer of 2014, Gregg Schwarz contacted me about tracking down a copy of the series of TV reports I did on Damion Lucas. As Schwarz told me the Rick Wershe story, I got hooked, too. That’s how this blog got started. That’s how I got started writing a book about Rick Wershe and the trillion-dollar fiasco that ruined his life. We call it the War on Drugs.

***

Attorney Ralph Musilli

The other key figure in the Rick Wershe saga is his longtime attorney, Ralph Musilli. People have criticized and second-guessed Musilli many times regarding Rick Wershe. ‘Why doesn’t he do this?’ ‘Why doesn’t he do that?’ ‘What’s taking him so long?’ I've disagreed with him, too.

These critics, arm-chair quarterbacks and second-guessers overlook one key thing: Ralph Musilli has been fighting for Rick Wershe for years with no pay. Nada. Zip. Not a dime.

Lawyers call this kind of work pro bono—for the public good. The Rick Wershe case surely must be one of the longest-running pro bono cases in the history of the legal profession in Michigan. When I look at all the legal briefs Musilli and his law firm have developed in the fight to free Rick Wershe, when I look at all of the case law research, the court appearances and meetings with the Michigan Parole Board, all of the phone calls from media types like me, I can safely write that Ralph Musilli’s pro bono work for Richard Wershe is easily in the six-figure range. Plus, Musilli’s assistant Theresa, has been on top of this fight, too, and she has been a telephone lifeline for Rick when things have not gone well.

It must be particularly galling for Musilli to hear all of the second-guessing, particularly from other Johnny-come-lately attorneys who see dollar signs by attaching themselves to the Rick Wershe story in the final inning.

Let’s be clear about the facts.

Michigan’s corrupt criminal justice system engaged in a years-long vendetta against Richard Wershe for telling the FBI about the corruption of Gil Hill, a politically powerful criminal who pressured and cajoled the Detroit/Wayne County political machine to heap retribution on the guy known in the media as White Boy Rick. Cops, prosecutors, judges and appellate court judges all did Gil Hill’s bidding in denying Rick Wershe parole. Sadly, Gil Hill got away with it. The FBI never had quite enough evidence to indict him.

It can be argued that the single most important thing that changed Wershe’s fate was Musilli associate Paul Louisell’s filing last December of a writ of habeas corpus in Detroit federal court against the Michigan Department of Corrections. A writ of habeas corpus essentially places a burden on the state to show why they are holding someone in custody.

When U.S. District Judge George Steeh accepted the motion, and set it for a hearing—that changed everything.

Suddenly, the State of Michigan to had to prove in a court of law why they were still holding Rick Wershe when every other inmate similarly charged had been paroled. The state knew it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to support the false claim that Rick Wershe was a menace to society.

In less than five business days after the filing of that motion, the Michigan Parole Board announced an expedited review of Rick Wershe’s parole status.

The rest is history.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe’s Next Big Challenge—Life on the Outside

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 16 Jul 2017 07:01:00 +0000

In a unanimous decision, the 10-member Michigan Parole Board voted on Friday to grant parole to Richard J. Wershe, Jr., Michigan’s longest-serving prisoner for a non-violent drug offense committed when he was a juvenile. He has served 29-and-a-half years of a life sentence. He may have to do some time in Florida for an old auto theft fraud case before he tastes freedom, but sooner or later Wershe will face another big challenge: Life on the outside.

The world has changed since Rick Wershe was last a part of it.

Rick Wershe’s many supporters—and there are many—have rightfully been celebrating since the Michigan Parole Board finally decided to deliver some long overdue justice. Wershe has served far more time than truly big-time drug dealers and drug-world hitmen, guys who kill people for money. All of them do ten or twelve years and they’re out.

As Informant America has reported many times over the last two years, Rick Wershe was a political prisoner. He was recruited as an FBI informant at age 14 and he became too good at it. He became known in the media as White Boy Rick. He told the FBI about the drug corruption of politically-connected and politically-powerful people in Detroit and Wayne County. Those people fought to keep Wershe in prison until he dies. This is covered in a piece I wrote for The Daily Beast.

All of that is over now. He could taste the fresh air of freedom as soon as the middle of August. This, by the way, is the normal process. If the Parole Board votes to give an inmate parole, the inmate doesn’t pack up and check out the same day. A parole officer must be assigned and that parole officer is required to investigate what Rick Wershe intends to do on the outside, where he intends to live, and with whom. The parole officer must interview the people Rick Wershe will live with and impress upon them the importance of not having any firearms in the same house, and certainly no drugs. All of this takes time. We’re talking about a bureaucracy, after all. For an inmate who has been granted a parole, all that matters is that vote by the Board. A few more weeks is nothing.

Rick Wershe has a case in Florida hanging over his head, and it may mean another delay in his release, but that will be addressed in another blog post.

For now, let us consider this: when he gets out, Rick Wershe faces a whole new set of challenges. He’s going to have to learn how to live on the outside. He’s been in prison his entire adult life. He’s never been a free adult. Think about that. Think about the adjustment he is going to have to make. The “system” has no mechanism to help him with that. He will be on his own. It is hoped that his many supporters will help him with that, too. That’s what this blog post will explore.

The first thing for Wershe’s family and friends to know is this: he needs protection. I'm not talking about protection from the criminals he knew in the past. I’m talking about hustlers and hucksters who hope to make a fast buck off of him.

Here’s an example: on Friday, after the news of his parole broke, some guy called Ralph Musilli, Wershe’s attorney, and wanted to start a business selling their autographs. Really. There are going to be all kinds like that coming out of the woodwork. They will try to track him down and pester him with crackpot ideas on how to make money off his notoriety.

Don’t get me wrong. Rick Wershe can take care of himself. He has spent three decades in the prison system. But the sheer volume of nut jobs and opportunists who see dollar signs when they see his name may be a bit much for even a street-savvy guy like Wershe. He has several job offers awaiting him and the last thing he needs is one of these creeps showing up at his job with a scheme to make money off the White Boy Rick legend.

Rick Wershe is going to face a world very different from the one he knew in 1988. When he went behind bars, Ronald Reagan was President. Gulf War I and Gulf War II hadn’t happened yet. Neither had the war in Afghanistan. Neither had the presidency of Bill Clinton. No one knew who Monica Lewinsky was. No one had heard the President referred to as Dubya. No one had ever heard of Barack Obama.

There were still phone booths on many street corners. Internet Web browsers and search engines hadn’t been invented yet. No one had ever heard of Google, Amazon or Netflix. Fox News was non-existent in 1988. Talent-challenged Kim Kardashian was not yet famous for being famous.

Rick Wershe certainly knows about all these things. He’s been in prison but not in solitary confinement. Still, the man became an adult in prison. He’s never had to cope with the day to day bullshit the rest of us accept as normal. People who consider themselves his friends can do a lot by helping him make the transition to life, a whole new life, on the outside. As he said last week when talking about his legendary past, White Boy Rick is dead.

***

This morning (Sunday, July 16^th) I received an email from Rick Wershe that I think needs to be shared with his family, friends and supporters. Communication with him is challenging and slow, so I haven’t asked his permission to share this. But under the circumstances, I’m going to bet Rick won’t mind if I let all of you know what he had to say.

A couple of notes about this email:

The “Mr. Eagen” he refers to is Michael Eagen, the chair of the Michigan Parole Board. Eagen took the unusual step of personally interviewing Rick at length one-to-one last February. At the end of that interview Eagen told Rick he handled himself well and indicated he was favorably impressed. It gave Rick his first dose of optimism about the system in three decades.

His reference to Judge Hathaway is Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Dana Hathaway, who took over the Wershe case after his original trial judge retired. Judge Hathaway had the courage to take a second look at the Rick Wershe case and she concluded that, under current law, his sentence should be revised to essentially time-served. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy threw a fit and fought it all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court, which cravenly refused to review the matter. That left Wershe in limbo.

Ironically, that cowardly decision by Michigan's highest court seemed to energize and motivate many people to demand justice. Suddenly, the Wershe case became politically HOT. Kym Worthy, facing considerable heat, moved to 'no position' and didn't object to parole. We saw the end result in the Parole Board vote this past Friday.

What follows is Rick Wershe's email to me verbatim:

Hey Vince yes WOW it feels so surreal it hasn't sunk in yet!!! 10 my way!

Mr Eagen has restored my faith that there are still good honest people in the system. Everything he told me he did!!! That has never happened to me in 30 years!!! I am at a loss for words at how highly I think of him!!! If I could see him I would just say thank you and I will never let you down! He's right up there with how highly I think of Judge Hathaway!!!

Man, Vince, this shit is finally over! And the stars are finally shining on me! I am just so happy!

Thank you and everyone else who helped expose their lies and cover-ups along the way!!!

Take care, all the best!!!

Rick makes a good point. Michael Eagen did the right thing in a system that has done the wrong thing for a long, long time. He deserves credit for it. All supporters of Rick should consider sending Eagen a short note thanking him for standing up for what is right and finally delivering justice in the Richard Wershe case. Guys like Eagen don’t get thanked very often. Here’s how to contact him:

Michael Eagen

Chair

Michigan Parole Board

Michigan Department of Corrections

PO Box 30003

Lansing, Michigan 48909

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick Wershe, Jr. granted parole from life sentence

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 17:35:00 +0000

Free at last. Well, almost. Richard J. Wershe, Jr., Michigan’s longest-serving inmate for a non-violent drug offense committed when he was a juvenile, was granted a parole today by the Michigan Parole Board.

"I'm coming home," an emotional Wershe told his lawyer's secretary before hanging up and promising to call back later.

He was informed of the Michigan Parole Board’s decision by Eric Smith, administrative assistant to the warden at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee, Michigan, where Wershe is regarded as a model prisoner. "He was obviously emotional," Smith said. "I sat with him for about two hours and we talked about the future and the next steps. (It was) pretty much what you would expect from a guy waiting for news that changes his life."

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. - Light at the end of the tunnel (MDOC photo)

The decision comes just four days short of his 48^th birthday. Wershe has spent his entire adult life behind bars. Wershe has been viewed as a political prisoner because it appears that political forces in Detroit have fought to keep him in prison. Other drug offenders who were charged in far bigger cases than Wershe’s, have been paroled after serving ten years or less. Even drug underworld hitmen, responsible for multiple murders, have served less time than Wershe.

Wershe, who was recruited as a confidential informant by the FBI at age 14, incurred the wrath of the corrupt Detroit/Wayne County criminal justice system after he helped the feds prosecute drug corruption involving a dozen cops and the common-law brother-in-law of former Detroit mayor Coleman Young. The case resulted in multiple convictions and prison sentences.

“I told on the wrong people,” Wershe has said.

He still faces prison time in Florida for a conviction in an auto fraud case involving stolen cars. His attorney intends to petition the Florida judge to change the two-year sentence to be concurrent with his Michigan time, which would eliminate any additional time in a Florida prison.

There will be more detailed coverage in a blog post on Sunday.

For the latest information see What's New on vincewade.net

Rick’s Life Sentence Drug Arrest—What Really Happened

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 07:01:00 +0000

There are many controversies surrounding the case of Richard J. Wershe, Jr.—White Boy Rick—who is serving a life prison term for a non-violent drug offense committed when he was a teenager. One contentious issue was his arrest in May, 1987 on charges of possession of over 650 grams of cocaine. What really happened? At his parole hearing last month Wershe explained, under oath, step-by-step, what went down that night.

The first thing to know before reading any further is that Rick Wershe, Jr. is not, and never has been, one of those Innocence Project inmates. Wershe admits he was involved in crime as a juvenile. He admits he wanted to be a big-time drug dealer. (He never made it, despite his reputation in the media.) But there’s another side to the story and it’s a big BUT.

Rick Wershe, Jr. with his mother Darlene at Oaks Correctional facility. He's waiting for the Parole Board to decide on his petition for parole from his life sentence in a 1988 drug case. A decision is expected this month or next.

As noted on this blog many times, Rick Wershe, Jr. was recruited into the drug world at age 14 by FBI agents in pursuit of the Curry Brothers drug gang on Detroit’s east side. He was recruited as a Confidential Informant. Wershe had not been part of the dope scene before that, but he lived in a racially mixed neighborhood, he was street-wise and he knew the Currys.

When the feds made their case against the Currys, they dropped their kid-informant, who was used to living a fast life on FBI and Detroit Police cash. Being a fully immature teen, Rick got the stupid idea that he ought to try his hand at becoming a big-time drug dealer, too.

The night of his fateful arrest, Wershe testified he was on his way to his grandmother’s house to pick up two kilos of cocaine he had stored there for a buyer named Brian McClendon, who had already paid him for the dope.

On the way to get the cocaine and deliver it to McClendon, who was following in another car, Wershe and his friend Roy Grisson, who was driving, were stopped by Detroit Police officers Jeffrey Clyburn and Rodney Grandison.

Wershe testified: “I knew Grandison very well.” Interestingly, in the parole hearing, Assistant State Attorney General Scott Rothermel, who seemed to want to fly-speck every aspect of Wershe’s time as a drug dealer said: “I’m not interested in that narrative.”

That may be because Rothermel, the seeker-of-truth-if-it-suits-his-line-of-questioning, didn’t want it to come out that FBI agent Herman Groman, who was present at the parole hearing, had proved with a tape-recorded telephone conversation that Grandison had lied—a felony—at Wershe’s drug trial. Introducing that would be messy. It would call in to question Wershe's conviction because a key witness committed perjury. Theoretically, it could re-open Wershe's drug conviction, and then where would the criminal justice system be? The system that has kept him in prison for 29 years based on that court conviction?

Grandison testified at Wershe's trial that he’d never met Wershe before that night. When Groman was working with Wershe at Marquette prison in 1990 to set up a sting operation that netted convictions of a batch of corrupt cops, Groman arranged to have Wershe call Grandison at home on a pretext. The phone conversation was unimportant, but it established beyond all doubt that Police Officer Rodney Grandison knew Rick Wershe, Jr. and he had perjured himself on the witness stand. If Rothermel had allowed Wershe to explain, he would have testified that Grandison used to invite him to his home often to smoke weed.

Wershe and Grisson didn’t have any drugs in the car when the police stopped them. But they had money, a lot of it.

There was $34,000 in cash in a plastic grocery shopping bag. More on the amount later.

The police spotted the cash on the floorboard of the car and confiscated it. They had no warrant to do so and there was no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed.

It was a warm night and when the police stopped the car in front of Wershe’s grandmother’s house, Richard Wershe, Sr. came out to see what the commotion was about. Wershe Sr. grabbed the bag of cash from the police in a scuffle. Rick’s sister Dawn grabbed the cash and ran in to grandma’s house with it.

Rick Wershe, Jr., meanwhile, walked away while his family and the police were fighting over the cash. He was not carrying anything. But that quickly changed. Wershe said he went to his grandmother’s detached garage and got a box of drugs that had arrived that day.

Wershe’s pal, the late Steve Rousell, had put the drugs in the garage after a shipment had arrived that day from Miami.

Somehow, Wershe managed to take the box of drugs to the next block and hid it under a residential porch without getting his fingerprints or palm prints on the box.

“We were in a panic,” Wershe testified. He admits he encountered Camden Street residents Greg and Patricia Story but, counter to testimony at the trial, Rick says he did not have a conversation with them and he denies offering Patricia Story five-hundred dollars to keep the box hidden.

“I was on the porch, trying to look inconspicuous,” Wershe said.

It didn’t work. The police arrived about ten minutes later on foot and took Wershe in to custody. He testified they put him in handcuffs and walked him between the houses back to Hampshire Street where the traffic-stop and scuffle occurred.

There was a fence between the houses. Wershe says Grandison pulled him over the fence gate by a gold chain around Wershe’s neck, then threw him to the ground. “He pistol-whipped me," Wershe testified. His eye socket was shattered and Wershe wound up going to the hospital instead of jail.

The neighbors eventually found the box of drugs and called the police, and some narcs came and took custody of the drugs about an hour after the incident occurred.

Wershe admits he has changed his story over the years and he suggested he once told a different version under oath because a lawyer was trying to help him win an appeal. He says what he told the Parole Board on June 8^th was the absolute truth.

Now. About that bag of money in the car when the police stopped Wershe and Grisson. Wershe testified the bag contained $34,000. It was money that Brian McClendon had paid him for two keys of coke.

But the police report after the incident said $29,000 was confiscated when Wershe was arrested.

What happened, Wershe was asked at his parole hearing, to the difference between the $34,000 that he was paid and the $29,000 the police turned in? “You have to ask the Detroit Police that,” Wershe said, without cracking a smile.

Rick Wershe’s Parole Hearing: His Tormentors Just Won’t Give It Up

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 07:00:00 +0000

On June 8^th, Richard Wershe, Jr. spent over four hours fighting for his life. He was tested by an Assistant Michigan Attorney General who ignored key elements in the Wershe story while grilling him at length about other parts. And for good measure, the media was chided for not finding a bombshell that turned out to be a dud.

Rick Wershe handled himself pretty well, all things considered, at his long-awaited hearing before the Michigan Parole Board. A lot of time was spent asking Wershe about his criminal activities before his conviction and imprisonment for life for a non-violent drug offense committed when he was a teen. Wershe is Michigan’s last remaining prison inmate doing life for a non-violent drug conviction. The Michigan Parole Board is facing two federal lawsuits over the question of why they are keeping Wershe in prison when all other inmates similarly charged have been released for time served.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. - hoping the Michigan Parole Board will end his life sentence. (MDOC photo)

There were some tense moments at the hearing, which will be explored in this blog post.

In response to questions from Assistant Attorney General Scott Rothermel, Wershe explained his troubled childhood and how he came to be recruited by the FBI to become a paid informant against the Curry drug gang, which dominated the drug trade on Detroit’s east side in the mid-1980s. Wershe is believed to be the youngest informant ever recruited by the FBI for criminal investigations.

Over the course of the hearing it became clear that Rothermel was determined to highlight all of Wershe’s crimes and mistakes and bad choices. Rothermel was not interested in hearing about all of the help Wershe provided the FBI. Perhaps that’s because Wershe helped expose corruption in the so-called criminal justice system of Michigan. To elicit details about Wershe’s informant work on public corruption would mean Rothermel would have to shine the spotlight on the graft, corruption and injustice within the system of which he is a part. Can’t have that, now can we?

Wershe was required to be truthful about every crime and misdeed brought up in the questioning. He knew and understood that total honesty was vital to winning parole. That’s why he became agitated when Rothermel threw him a curve ball.

To understand the curve ball, it’s necessary to offer some background. After Rick Wershe was sentenced to life in prison in Detroit in 1988, he was approached in Marquette State Prison by FBI Special Agent Herman Groman, his “handler” when Wershe was working as an informant from the summer of 1984 until the spring of 1986.

Groman told him the government would get him transferred to the federal Witness Security program if he would help initiate an FBI undercover sting operation aimed at prosecuting drug corruption in the Detroit Police Department. The Witness Security program (WitSec) is a prisoner version of the Witness Protection program. Certain federal prisons have a special secure section for convicts who are informants and who have helped the government make important cases. It’s still prison, but life in the WitSec units is far better than in regular prison facilities.

Wershe agreed to help the FBI again, and Operation Backbone was a big success. Close to a dozen police officers were indicted and pled guilty or were convicted. Operation Backbone also ensnared Willie Clyde Volsan, the former brother-in-law of Detroit’s late Mayor Coleman Young.

Rick Wershe was transferred to a WitSec unit at federal prison in Phoenix, Arizona. His time there was unremarkable until he befriended Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, the Mafia hitman turned informant who helped bring down John Gotti, the Godfather of Godfathers in the U.S. Mafia.

Gravano found out Rick Wershe’s father was a licensed gun dealer. Soon, Gravano asked Wershe to help him get some guns that could be used to murder John Gotti, Jr. for some feud he and Gravano had.

Wershe informed Herm Groman, his longtime FBI handler, about what Gravano was up to. Groman had to report it to Washington. This stirred up a hornet’s nest in Washington at the FBI and Justice Department. Here was one informant informing on a higher profile informant, the government’s prize witness against the Mafia.

The FBI/Justice Department investigation of Wershe’s claims about Gravano got muddled, perhaps deliberately, and the matter ended inconclusively. But Wershe, for his own safety, had to be transferred. They moved him to another WitSec unit in a federal prison in Florida.

While there, Wershe got wind of a used car sales scheme involving guys on the outside and a fellow WitSec inmate named Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols.

Wershe saw an opportunity to buy used cars in Florida and ship them to Michigan to be re-sold at a higher price. He says he did it to help his mother and sister make some money. He also admitted he learned, at some point, that these were stolen cars.

Wershe was busted along with a number of others involved in the car scam. One of them was Antonio Ferrer, a car salesman on the outside. When Ferrer was arrested, he did what millions of criminals do: he told on the others in hopes of getting a break on his part of the case. It worked. Ferrer was charged, like Rick Wershe, with Racketeering and Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering. For singing a song about everyone else in the scheme, Ferrer was sentenced to probation on both counts. No time served. He did, however, have to pay a fine for his part in the car scheme.

The Miami-Dade police detective on the car case, Les Cravens, apparently loved the story Ferrer told him. Cravens wrote up what is called a probable cause affidavit, laying out all the claims Ferrer made about the others in the case, including Rick Wershe. Such affidavits routinely list all the crimes and possible crimes related to the investigation. It’s like throwing all the allegations against a wall and seeing which of them stick.

One of Ferrer’s allegations was that Rick Wershe proposed hiding drugs in the door panels of cars being shipped out of Florida as a means of smuggling narcotics.

The Florida prosecutor never pursued this allegation against Rick Wershe. He pled guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. But there was nothing—nothing—in the charges against him or in his court paperwork for the plea agreement that mentioned drugs.

Thus, Rick Wershe was stunned at his June 8^th parole hearing when Assistant Attorney General Rothermel brought it up and asked him about it. Wershe, getting agitated said, “I never saw that document.”

Rothermel proceeded to quiz Wershe, over and over and over about Ferrer’s “admission” that he, Wershe, suggested shipping cocaine in the door panels of cars.

Wershe raised his voice and said, “I never dealt with drugs in prison.” Rothermel told him to calm down.

The Detroit Free Press, always willing in past years to smear Rick Wershe as a “drug lord” and “kingpin” without any evidence to support that libel, had a screaming headline on its Web site after the hearing that Wershe had a “meltdown”! They got over their own hyperventilating "meltdown" and calmed down later, posting a more professional headline.

Wershe did not have a meltdown. He didn’t “lose it.” No one had to restrain him in his seat. Not even close. He did become agitated and verbally combative about a serious charge he had never heard before. This was serious stuff. This was his one shot. His parole hearing. And a lawyer for the state was bringing up something that blindsided Wershe.

The reason he hadn’t heard about it was simple. It was a document of unsubstantiated allegations from a co-defendant who was angling for the best deal he could get. And he got a good one. Probation. No jail time. In the end, the Florida prosecutor apparently concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to bother with this allegation. That’s why Wershe had never heard it before. It was an unsupported allegation in a cop’s affidavit to get criminal charges in a case.

Rothermel showed his real motive, I believe, when he kept stating, repeatedly, “I found this document in the Florida court file. I don’t know why no one else did.” Before long, it became evident his repeated harangue about the document was less about Rick Wershe and more about tweaking the noses of those of us in the media who have lambasted the Attorney General’s Office for sloppiness and negligence in the Wershe case. It was Rothermel’s chance—or so he thought—to get back at the media. “I-I-I” found this, why didn’t anyone else?”

Well, others, myself included, did find it, but disregarded it as an unsupported allegation from a guy looking to get a good plea deal. It happens all the time in law enforcement.

Here’s an excerpt from the probable cause affidavit that Scott Rothermel mistakenly assumed no one else found but him:

Excerpt with highlights from a Florida "Probable Cause" affidavit in Rick Wershe's case in that state.

If the Parole Board reviews the affidavit and the official record in Rick Wershe’s Florida case, they will discover that Mr. Rothermel made an ass of himself over a document with unsupported, unsubstantiated allegations by a criminal looking to get a good deal.

Since Rothermel made such a big deal about “finding” documentation in the Wershe case, it’s time to point out the sloppiness and negligence of his office in a federal lawsuit Wershe has pending against the Michigan Parole Board for violating his civil rights by refusing to grant him parole.

The Attorney General of Michigan is the “lawyer” for the Michigan Parole Board, so the AG’s office is litigating Wershe’s civil rights case.

In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the Michigan Attorney General’s office claimed—falsely—that Rick Wershe, the plaintiff, had been convicted in federal court for possession of gun silencers. They got it wrong, plain and simple.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office has been so determined to find dirt on Richard J. Wershe, Jr. that they cited to a federal court a gun silencer case they attributed to Rick Wershe. If they had done thorough and accurate legal work they would have noticed the case involved his father, Richard J. Wershe, Sr. and not Richard J. Wershe, Sr. His prison file is full of these kinds of sloppy criminal justice "fact" assertions and it has cost him all of his adult life behind bars.

If the Attorney General’s Office had done what lawyers call due diligence they would have discovered that case involved Rick Wershe’s father—Richard Wershe, SR—and not Richard Wershe, JR. There IS a federal case about gun silencers against a defendant named Richard Wershe, but the Michigan Attorney General got it wrong. They cited the wrong person. The wrong defendant. There is no evidence they have done anything to correct their mistake. Apparently they have a hard time admitting mistakes.

Note to Scott Rothermel: I found this, why didn’t your office? “I-I-I” found this. Why was the Attorney General’s office so sloppy and negligent that you couldn’t find it?

The difference between Rothermel’s big show at the Parole Hearing over the unsubstantiated Probable Cause affidavit that HE found in Florida and what I just pointed out is substantial. Did I mention HE found it? He told us that over and over at the parole hearing. Another note to Scott Rothermel: Good for you! Way to go! Attaboy! Give yourself a gold star.

The error by the Attorney General’s Office in the Wershe civil suit is real, it is factual, it is in the court record. The co-defendant’s claim in Florida about Wershe conspiring to smuggle drugs in the door panels of cars, is not.

Rick Wershe can only hope the Michigan Parole Board can distinguish between Scott Rothermel’s showboating about an irrelevant document—and fact.

***

The next step in the Wershe parole process is for a stenographer to type up the entire four hours of his parole hearing. Copies of the transcript will be given to the full 10-member Parole Board and they will vote, in July or August, on whether to grant him parole. Six of the 10 members must vote to grant parole.

Wershe has his Parole Hearing at last.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 02:00:00 +0000

Richard J. Wershe Jr., Michigan's longest - serving prison inmate for a non-violent drug crime committed when he was a juvenile, had a hearing before the Michigan Parole Board today. Overall it went well. Here's a brief recap. A more detailed report will be in the next blog installment on June 18:

Rick Wershe Jr. Answered questions, admitted guilt and gave a full and granular - detail accounting of his brief life of crime and longer life as a confidential FBI informant, beginning at age 14, in a very detailed exploration of his saga in questioning by an assistant state attorney-general. Wershe answered questions from 9:00 am until 1:10pm, with a brief 10-minute potty break in between.

Wershe got agitated by questions about allegations made against him by a police informant in Florida, but generally answered questions smoothly.

"I've lost 30 years of my life," he told the two Board members present for the hearing. I messed up. I'm sorry."

An official transcript of the hearing will be prepared, and after a review, the full Board will vote up or down on parole. The vote is expected some time this summer.

The Moment of Truth for White Boy Rick: Richard Wershe’s Parole Hearing Is At Hand

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 07:01:00 +0000

The years of waiting are over. On Thursday, June 8, 2017, the Michigan Parole Board will hold a public hearing on the issue of parole for Richard J. Wershe, Jr.—the longest serving inmate for a non-violent drug crime committed as a juvenile. Wershe has been locked up for 29 years, the victim of a criminal justice system vendetta against someone who told on the wrong people—people in political power. Here’s what to expect:

The day Richard J. Wershe, Jr. has dreamed about, prayed for, longed for, will arrive later this week. After 29 years in prison on a life sentence for possession of cocaine, Wershe will get his first meaningful chance at parole. The Michigan Parole Board has voted to consider granting him parole.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. - Hoping for parole after 29 years. (MDOC photo)

He had a parole hearing in 2003, but that was a sham, a go-through-the-motions kangaroo court staged to give the appearance of a consideration of parole. It was far from it.

The Michigan criminal justice system—from Detroit to Lansing—was furious that Wershe had told the FBI about political and police drug corruption in Detroit. Wershe had told the feds how the late Gil Hill, the former Inspector in charge of Homicide and later Detroit City Council President, had been paid off by the Johnny Curry drug gang to ensure a homicide investigation did not find the true killers of a 13-year old boy, Damion Lucas, who had been killed mistakenly by two members of the Curry organization.

For a $10-thousand-dollar bribe, Hill focused the investigation on an innocent man, who was released after months of intense behind-the-scenes intrigue between the FBI, the Detroit Police and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office. The Detroit Police Department, through Hill and other top command personnel, obstructed justice to protect the Curry gang because Johnny Curry was married to the niece of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, one of the most powerful and feared politicians in the city’s history. In 2003, the powers-that-be manipulated Wershe’s parole hearing to ensure he stayed in prison. It was retribution for daring to tell the FBI about the sewer of corruption flowing through Detroit’s criminal justice system. The 1985 Damion Lucas killing has never been solved and prosecuted.

None of that will matter on Thursday. This parole hearing is sure to be different. The first thing to know is this: no decision is expected that day. There will be no immediate vote on parole for Wershe. The full board will be given a written transcript of the hearing and the full board will vote after considering the transcript. The full board has to vote. That’s the way it is in lifer cases.

The only expected witness is Wershe himself. Two members of the Parole Board, chair Michael Eagen and Member Sharon Wilson, will conduct the hearing. An assistant state attorney general will ask questions. The Michigan Attorney General is the official lawyer for the Parole Board.

Wershe is expected to be contrite and remorseful. He will tell the Board he was brought up in a dysfunctional family with no meaningful parental supervision. His parents divorced after a stormy, violent marriage. Wershe’s mother left Rick and his sister Dawn with their father, a man with a violent temper and dreams of becoming a self-made millionaire. Success eluded him and he was seldom home.

When the FBI came around looking to recruit 14-year old Ricky to be a secret informant against the Curry drug gang, Richard Wershe, Sr. readily agreed to let his son enter a dangerous arrangement no responsible and caring parent would accept. Rick’s late father saw an opportunity to make another quick buck.

Wershe is expected to recite all of this to the Parole Board as he did in 2003. "I really didn't have any parental supervision at the time," Wershe testified 14 years ago. "I was basically raising myself and I went down some wrong paths."

If Wershe is bitter toward his parents, he hides it, for the most part. But there is no doubt he understands he is, in a sense, a victim of his childhood. "I went down the wrong path and I grew up in prison" he testified in 2003. "I had no one there to guide me other than older people who were all criminals their selves."

The Parole Board will hear or read in reports that Wershe has been what amounts to a model prisoner. He doesn’t get in trouble and strives to get along with everyone. He got his high-school diploma equivalency while he was behind bars. He has taken every course and counseling opportunity provided to him.

The Parole Board won’t hear testimony about how federal and local narcs in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) used their teen informant and then kicked him to the curb when they made their case against the Curry gang.

Wershe was suddenly without a source of money and without a viable trade. He turned to the only trade he knew.

The one law enforcement had taught him. He tried to become a big-time drug dealer—and got caught before he could make the big leagues.

The media helped bury him behind bars by relentlessly calling him White Boy Rick. Gullible reporters bought the dubious prosecution tale that this white kid somehow ruled the roost in Detroit's murderous drug trade; that prison-hardened adult black men were taking orders from a white kid who couldn't even grow a decent moustache. Newspaper and TV reporters never questioned the evidence for the claim that Wershe was a "drug lord" and a "kingpin." The image of a white teen Godfather of drugs in the black ghetto was too sensational to ignore.

Wershe is expected to say he understands the gravity of his brief life of crime. He is expected to say he has done all he can to prepare for life on the outside. He has lots of people willing to help him and he doesn’t lack for employment opportunities. Hollywood has become interested in him thanks to a movie about his strange tale, that is now in production.

Wershe’s attorney, Ralph Musilli, hopes the hearing will be brief. That means less pages that have to be transcribed. That means the full Parole Board can vote sooner, perhaps at their meeting in July.

Maybe the legend of White Boy Rick is about to end.

Maybe the rest of the life of Richard J. Wershe, Jr. is about to begin.

###

Parole Hearing for Richard J. Wershe, Jr.

Date: June 8, 2017

Time: 9:00 a.m.

Location: G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility

the T-100 Training Center (limited seating available)

Address: 3500 N. Elm Rd. Jackson, MI 49201

This is a correctional facility with commensurate security measures. Cell phones and recording devices will not be permitted.

Jeff Sessions wants more Rick Wershes in our nation’s prisons

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 21 May 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Earlier this month, tucked between the daily scandals and Constitutional crises emanating from the White House, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a plan that will cost additional tax dollars. He’s ordered federal prosecutors around the country to get tough again on crime, across the board. Punishment to the max. Go for the toughest sentence possible, no matter what the crime or the circumstances. Leniency will require special permission. This policy flies in the face of national crime and punishment trends and prevailing public views on imprisonment. But for Sessions and others like him, it makes no difference. It’s the kind of prosecution attitude that landed a kid named Richard Wershe in prison for life.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. has never walked the streets as an adult. He’s been in prison for 29 years for a non-violent drug dealing conviction from an arrest when he was 17 years old.

Drug hit men who have murdered multiple victims have been tried, convicted, sentenced, imprisoned and released in the time Wershe has been in prison. He’s been described as a model prisoner, yet he’s been kept behind bars as a result of a law enforcement vendetta. Wershe was an informant for the FBI and he told on the wrong people. He told the feds about corruption involving politically powerful cops and the brother-in-law of Detroit’s former mayor, Coleman Young. He’s paid a horrific price.

Wershe could be a poster child for the argument against mandatory minimum sentences. Yet, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to return to that kind of sentencing at the federal level. More on that in a moment.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to fill these up again.

The United States continues to throw far more of its people in prison than any other civilized nation with no evidence we are more law abiding as a result. I’ve borrowed a chart from the Prison Policy Initiative because it’s so startling. You are encouraged to look at this chart and other data on their Web site:

There is a segment of this nation that is hateful and vindictive and rigid in its view of punishment for crime. As the Guardian of London newspaper put it, “Americans like to punish.” The British paper says America, or a significant segment of it, is “addicted to punishment.”

This isn’t entirely accurate or fair. A public opinionsurvey last year by the respected Pew Charitable Trusts found six in ten Americans believe there are too many drug offenders in our nation’s prisons. The same survey found an overwhelming majority of Americans—79 percent—agree mandatory minimum sentences should be abolished and judges should be given latitude to let the punishment fit the crime.

Then there’s U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his ilk. Sessions is a vengeful throw-the-book-at-‘em kind of prosecutor, even though there’s no evidence this has any effect on the crime rate. In fact, the evidence suggests just the opposite.

As a nation, we have been moving toward a more balanced and reasoned view of crime and punishment. Are we in greater danger as a result? No. The overall national crime rate is trending—down. Survey and statistical compilations by the Pew Charitable Trusts, show violent crime in the United States is down sharply in a trend that has continued over the past quarter century! It’s not down some piddling amount, either. The FBI’s annual compilation of crime statistics from police and sheriff’s departments nationwide show violent crime fell by fifty percent—50%!!—between 1993 and 2015. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) regularly surveys 90 thousand households about crime issues. During that same time frame, the BJS surveys show Americans believe violent crime declined by 77 percent.

Property crime is down over the long term, too.

In announcing a return to a policy of the past, Sessions claimed the homicide rate is on the rise. Like the claims of many politicians, there’s a nugget of truth in what he says. Homicide rates are climbing—in some cities. But overall, crime is in decline nationwide.

It appears Sessions is pandering to roughly a third of the American public that mindlessly supports every politician who speechifies that we need to “get tough on crime.” This same third of the population usually makes the most noise about hating—absolutely hating—to pay taxes. Duh. Do these simpletons think prisons are free? Where do they think the money comes from to keep the prisons running? I’m assuming here that these people think. That may be a reckless assumption on my part.

Careful observers of the War on Drugs might note Sessions and his cohorts and predecessors never ever ever try to stop the flow of the money of the international drug trade. That would mean putting some bankers in jail. Good luck with that. Name me one banker or financial industry tycoon who has been prosecuted for enabling the massive flow of illegal drugs by taking a cut of the action to keep the cartels in business. That’s why the War on Drugs is such a costly failure. It’s easier to give the appearance of doing something by arresting and prosecuting the bottom feeders, the lowest part of the illegal drugs pipeline. You can be sure all the “kingpins” and “drug lords” the DEA, FBI, U.S. Customs and thousands of local police narcs have locked up are essentially bottom feeders who sit in our prisons while their replacements push dope as fast as they can until they, too, get caught.

Corrections, the prison system, gobbles up about 20 percent of the Michigan state budget. That’s a huge amount of money. In Michigan, it costs about $40 thousand tax dollars per year to keep someone locked up in prison. Federal prisons are a little cheaper at a little over 29 thousand dollars-per-inmate, according to 2015 data, but that cost is multiplied by several hundred thousand prisoners. Is it tax money well spent?

Well, sometimes. It’s true there are repeat offenders—recidivism is the term the experts use—who will never be rehabilitated, who can never live within society’s norms and boundaries and rules. Serial killers come to mind. These sociopaths and psychopaths need to be locked up. But they are a minority of the prison population.

Others may need to be locked up, but not for decades or for life. They need a carefully developed and supervised path back to the outside. It’s going to be hard because society brands them with a Scarlet C forever. They’re ex-cons and ex-cons always have a challenge becoming useful citizens because society and the economy tend to shun them. It’s hard to be law abiding when no one will give you a chance.

But dope dealers? Eh. That’s a tough issue. The standard line from prosecutors and police chiefs is, harsh penalties are a deterrent. Oh, really? As soon as the narcs bust some big “kingpin” or “drug lord” there’s someone else standing on the street corner, so to speak, taking their place. The ink isn’t even dry on the court paperwork for the dethroned kingpin before his replacement is slinging dope in his place.

Like Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, the War on Drugs is a colossal failure. You don’t think so? Then explain why the cost of cocaine is down. The illegal drug trade is the ultimate supply-and-demand business and the never-ending police drug busts have been such a failure at reducing the flow of illegal drugs that there’s a glut of cocaine on the streets.

In the meantime, throwbacks like Attorney General Sessions want to spend more tax dollars sending drug dealers to prison. No one in law enforcement, from Sessions on down to the lowest narc, can credibly argue that the War on Drugs has been anything but a failure.

As Ralph Musilli, Rick Wershe’s attorney puts it, the War on Drugs is like trying to fight a termite infestation one termite at a time.

About now, some narc wants to challenge me by saying something like, ‘So what’s the answer? Let ‘em sell all the drugs they want?’

Well, no. But we haven’t tried demand reduction. Every western country treats drug abuse as a medical/social problem that needs serious public resources (tax dollars) devoted to demand reduction. The dealers can’t deal if the customers disappear. But we haven’t tried that because of what the British newspaper called our punishment addiction. That, and the fact that drug enforcement is a cash cow for many police departments due to draconian forfeiture laws and procedures.

It’s widely believed that Albert Einstein once defined insanity as going the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. That could be applied to the War on Drugs. The cops and prosecutors keep crowing about this week’s drug bust of the century. “We really got ‘em this time!” Yes, of course you did.

There is a not-too-bright, gullible segment of the population that believes this nonsense. The law enforcement fairy tale about the War on Drugs endures.

Cameras roll on the Rick movie and a look back at his trial defense

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 07 May 2017 07:01:00 +0000

They are hard at work on the White Boy Rick movie about Rick Wershe, Jr. Filming is underway in Cleveland, which is substituting for Detroit, as explained in a previous blog post about how incentive packages influence where movies are shot. In the last post, we took a look back at the prosecution’s argument in the 1988 trial that resulted in his conviction and life sentence. This post recaps the puzzling defense position in his case.

They are busy filming a movie inspired by the saga of Richard J. Wershe, Jr., known in the media as White Boy Rick. The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper did a photo spread last week showing scenes being shot at a Cleveland Mall that is supposed to be the backdrop for the unveiling of the Detroit People Mover. "Matthew McConaughey films scene for 'White Boy Rick' in Cleveland's Tower City" features photos that show star Matthew McConaughey and a first look at Richie Merritt, the newcomer who plays Rick Wershe in the film. There are a series of photos that can be scrolled by using the right-hand arrow near the photo spread. Merritt is the young man with the curly hair, gold chains and a fur coat. There's also a photo of the actor who is playing the role of Detroit's late mayor Coleman Young. And, of course, there are photos of Matthew McConaughey, sporting a mullet, who is playing the role of Richard Wershe, Sr.

***

Rick Wershe’s defense attorney at his trial was not the one he had when he was arrested. Initially, he was represented by William Bufalino II, a veteran criminal defense lawyer. Bufalino’s father, William Bufalino I, was a close associate of Jimmy Hoffa and represented the New Jersey Teamsters who were called before a federal grand jury and grilled about Hoffa’s disappearance.

After reviewing the facts of Wershe’s arrest in May, 1987 for possession of cocaine in excess of 650 grams, the first thing Bufalino did was file a court motion to suppress the evidence. The evidence was 8 kilos of cocaine in a box that did not have Wershe’s fingerprints or palm prints on the box or the packages of cocaine inside it.

The late Ed Bell

Between Wershe’s arrest and trial, he replaced Bufalino with Detroit attorney Ed Bell. This was done at the urging of Cathy Volsan Curry, the niece of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Wershe and Cathy Volsan Curry were having a fling at the time and she and her family convinced young Wershe that he needed a black attorney for a case to be heard by a Detroit jury in Recorders Court. Bell was black. Bufalino was white. Wershe pushed Bufalino aside and hired Ed Bell as his defense attorney.

The first thing Bell did when he took over the case was to withdraw the motion to suppress the evidence. Why he did this was never explained. Bell and Bufalino are both deceased.

But we do know this: Bell was close to Mayor Young in Detroit’s black political power structure. Young did not like his niece consorting with drug dealers, especially a young white kid who aspired to become a big-time drug man.

What if, just supposing for a moment, Bell set out to make sure Rick Wershe would go to prison for life if he was convicted? That would end Wershe’s affair with Cathy Volsan Curry, and it would eliminate a family headache for the mayor.

Withdrawing the motion to suppress made no sense. It did not hinder the case in any way and it provided a viable avenue of appeal in the event of a conviction. After all, this was a trial about possession of cocaine. There were plenty of reasons to challenge the police claim that it was Wershe’s dope. There was no fingerprint evidence on the drugs or the box they were in, and witness testimony was in conflict about who did what and who had what when Wershe was arrested. If the appeals court could be persuaded to suppress the evidence, the prosecution case against Wershe would fall apart. Without the motion to suppress, Wershe’s chances on appeal were not good.

Instead of attacking the evidence, which was vital to the prosecution’s case, Bell pinned his argument to the jury on the suggestion that the police may have planted the cocaine to fabricate a reason for his arrest and to cover up police brutality. Police officer Rodney Grandison, who arrested Wershe and lied under oath when he told the jury he did not know Wershe, gave Wershe such a beating in between some houses at the time of the arrest that Grandison fractured his prisoner’s eye socket. Wershe says he and Grandison were well acquainted and in fact, Grandison used to invite him to his house to smoke marijuana with him. The FBI later proved Grandison was lying when he said he had never met Wershe before the arrest. Wershe called Grandison at home in an FBI recorded call from Marquette prison. The call made it obvious that Grandison and Wershe were well acquainted.

In his opening argument to the jury, Bell attacked the police version of events.Bell began by challenging the police claims about how the sequence of arrest events began.

The police claim they made a traffic stop because the car Wershe and a friend were in was speeding through Wershe’s neighborhood. The high-speed pursuit covered half a block.

“You must determine whether or not that car was traveling at a high rate of speed to get to the middle of the block,” Bell told the jury. The implication was that the police invented the speeding story to cover the fact they made a “pretext” traffic stop on Wershe. In other words, Bell suggested they were lying in wait, looking for an excuse regarding Rick Wershe.

After the police stop, Wershe and the driver, Roy Grisson, were standing outside, between their car and the police car, as Officer Grandison and his partner, Jeffrey Clyburn, approached. The police looked in the car. There was a plastic grocery bag filled with money on the passenger-side floorboard.

Officer Clyburn reached in for the money and claimed he thought he saw a gun, too. Rick Wershe’s family came out of the house and a scuffle and fight broke out between the Wershe family and the police.

“You will hear testimony that when this was all over, there was no gun. There was no gun,” Bell said.

At this point, there are two fact questions for the jury to consider. The first is whether it’s plausible that a car was speeding for half a block, or whether the police officers made it up as an excuse to make a traffic stop. The second is whether a police officer was lying when he said he started searching the car because he thought he saw a gun inside. The police admit when it was all over, there was no gun, and that was Bell’s point to the jury. If there was no gun, Officer Clyburn had no “probable cause” to search the car—making it an illegal search by the police.

While his family was mixing it up with the police, Rick Wershe walked away. He went between the houses to the next block. Here again, the prosecution case gets shaky.

“The Prosecutor is going to ask you believe that he (Rick Wershe) escapes from the police without any dope, and then goes someplace and gets eight kilos of cocaine to walk blatantly into the street one block over, goes up to somebody that (is sitting) sits on the porch, and says ‘I want to pay you five hundred dollars to put this in your backyard.’ He’s escaped without any dope. They want you to believe he went and got some dope,” Bell argued to the jury. By now the neighborhood is crawling with police officers responding to radio calls about the fight with the Wershes. Bell asked the jury to use common sense in considering whether Rick Wershe would walk away from a police confrontation, go between some houses, get a box with about 18 pounds of dope in it and walk around the street carrying the box of durgs and asking a resident if he could hide it in her back yard.

That claim about Wershe offering money to hide a box in someone’s back yard came from a prosecution witness named Patricia Story. Yet, this same woman never said a word about it when Officer Grandison found Rick Wershe standing near the woman’s porch, without a box, and arrested him. She never said, “Officer, this young man put a box in the back yard and offered me five hundred dollars if I would let him put It there.” She didn’t mention the conversation about the box when the police arrested Wershe. The box wasn’t found until later that evening after the Wershe family had been taken to the police precinct and Rick Wershe had been taken to the hospital for treatment of his fractured eye socket.

A team of narcs from a federal/local drug task force just happened to appear at the police precinct station when an “anonymous” call came in about a box in the back yard where Wershe was arrested. Keep in mind, Patricia Story hasn’t told the police about any box. No one knows about any box or any dope until this mysterious “anonymous” tip phone call to the police precinct about an hour after the arrests.

The call is mysterious because, somehow, the automated police phone recording system which records all incoming calls, just happened to supposedly fail at the precise moment the tip call came in.

Acting on this phone tip that somehow wasn’t recorded, the narcs go back to the scene and low and behold there’s a box with 8 kilos of cocaine, but Wershe’s fingerprints and palm prints aren’t on it. Yet prosecution witness Patricia Story contends Rick Wershe was lugging this 16-pound box around, asking to put it in her back yard.

Bell urged the jury to pay attention to the testimony about the finding of the box.

In one version, it has been taken into the Story house. Another version has the box being found by the police under a back porch. Bell noted the witness testimony would not jibe with the police written reports from that night about the mysterious box of cocaine.

“Now, I don’t know how they could have gotten those stories so confused,” Bell told the jury. “There’s only one box, but all of a sudden the box is now in several different places when people find it.”

As he concluded his opening argument, Bell said: "It's the theory of the Defense that the police had a good reason to put the box back there. It had to do with the beating. And you will hear a lot of testimony about that," Bell said, adding, "It's a shallow, artificial, superficial case put together by a combination of the Detroit Police Department and Wayne County Prosecutor's Office because they don't like Richard Wershe. That's the reason we're here. No other."

Bell was suggesting the police planted the drugs to fabricate a case against Rick Wershe that would send him to prison for life.

There’s a concept in criminal law called constructive possession. An example might be something that is found in a suspect’s bank safe deposit box. The suspect may not have physical possession, but has constructive possession because he/she had control of the safe deposit box.

The key to constructive possession is the defendant must have had knowledge of the object, in this case a box of cocaine, and the ability to control it.

From the recitation of facts in this blog, it is easy to see why William Bufalino’s first move when he was on the case was to file a motion to suppress the evidence, the box of drugs, in the Wershe case.

Why Ed Bell withdrew the motion to challenge the evidence makes no sense. Bell was an experienced trial lawyer. He had been a circuit court judge.

It’s provocative to accuse an attorney of sabotaging his client to curry political favor with a powerful politician. But the notion that a political player like Ed Bell might maneuver to ensure that a young man who was an embarrassment to a powerful mayor went to prison for life, is a theory that makes sense in the atmosphere of 1980s Detroit.

Prior to trial, Rick Wershe had been smeared repeatedly on TV news and in the newspapers as a suspected “drug lord” and “kingpin,” in effect the Godfather of Detroit’s cocaine underworld. It had to have a corrosive effect on potential jurors. Despite all the flaws in the prosecution case, a jury found Rick Wershe guilty of possession of over 650 grams of cocaine. Under Michigan law at the time, the penalty was automatically life in prison.

By his own admission, Wershe was trying to become a cocaine wholesaler, a weight man. But as retired FBI agent Gregg Schwarz has said, he didn’t make it. He was busted before he could hit the big time.

In Coleman Young’s empire, there were many bootlickers and sycophants who were constantly maneuvering to curry favor with “The Mayah.” The police department and Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office were no exceptions.

Rick Wershe had had his share of run-ins with the police, beginning as a juvenile. Now he was strutting around wearing gold chains and expensive clothes and sleeping with the mayor’s niece. For some cops, he was a cocky pain in the ass. As Ed Bell told the jury, “they don’t like Richard Wershe.”

Mayor Young was known to be dismayed that his favorite niece had a drug habit and a penchant for dating a Who’s Who of the Detroit drug trade. Her dalliance with a white kid who was looking to become a big shot in the city’s drug underworld had to be particularly galling.

Years later, in Wershe’s 2003 parole hearing, William Bufalino II testified under oath that Bell and his law partner, the late Sam Gardner, who had been chief Recorders Court judge, and another crony of Coleman Young, “…pulled the motion. They hung this boy out to dry."

The reader is invited to make a list of the key points and facts in this blog. Then, connect the dots.

As Rick Wershe’s Parole Fate Looms, Bogus “Facts” come out of the woodwork.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 23 Apr 2017 07:01:00 +0000

The news media, and many in the public, are finally paying attention to the story of Richard J. Wershe, Jr., a man known to many only as White Boy Rick. He’s been in prison for 29 years of a life sentence for non-violent possession of a box of cocaine when he was a juvenile. In response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Michigan has paroled or allowed the re-sentencing of every inmate charged under circumstances similar to Wershe; a juvenile non-violent offender. Every inmate, that is, except Rick Wershe. He has been in prison longer than some murderers, because he told the FBI about politically connected police corruption in Detroit. As his attorney says, he told on the wrong people. In a very real sense he’s a political prisoner. His continued imprisonment is part of a vendetta by a corrupt criminal justice system in Michigan. With the newfound attention to the Wershe case, there are claims of “facts” that simply aren’t true. This blog post will profile one example.

One day recently, retired Detroit Police Sgt. John Simon was interviewed by WDIV-TV, Channel 4 in Detroit and he claimed he was Rick Wershe’s arresting officer and that he now believes Michigan’s longest-serving juvenile prison inmate doing time for a drug case doesn’t deserve his harsh sentence.

It sounds good, but there’s one problem: the tale Simon told the TV station doesn’t match the official court record from Rick Wershe’s 1988 Recorders Court trial. I have the trial transcript, all 32 pounds of it. I’m going to share a bit of it in this blog post. I will focus on the opening argument of the prosecutor. I expended considerable effort to obtain the Wershe trial transcript for a book I am writing about Rick Wershe and the War on Drugs.

Cover page from a volume of the transcript of the Rick Wershe, Jr. drug trial in 1988.

One of Rick Wershe’s enduring problems over the years has been bogus information reported as fact in the media. It has contributed to his reputation—a legend—and like most legends, a lot of it isn’t true. Judges, prosecutors—and Parole Board members—read or watch this stuff, just like everyone else, and it makes an impression. Often, it’s a bad impression that isn’t supported by the facts.

Some of what Simon told the TV station is correct, such as his observation that young Rick Wershe was known to the police. As a young teen, Rick Wershe, Jr. was on the wild side. In blunt terms, he was a juvenile delinquent with no parental supervision. His parents were divorced, his father had custody of Rick and his sister, Dawn, but Richard Wershe Sr. was seldom around. Rick Wershe, Jr. raised himself, for the most part. His lifelong friend, Dave Majkowski, who manages the Free Richard Wershe Jr. Facebook page, says they were always getting stopped by the police for shooting BB guns or setting off fireworks.

Channel 4 quotes Sgt. Simon as saying Rick Wershe was no kingpin. He likened Wershe to an errand boy for the real big-time dope dealers. The statement that Wershe was no kingpin is true. The report quoting Sgt. Simon gets in trouble when the retired cop talks about the facts of the Wershe drug case.

The station reported on its web site: "But on May 22, 1987, Simon said Wershe had 8 kilos of cocaine and a bag of cash."

This is false.

Rick Wershe was a passenger in a car that was pulled over near his home on Hampshire St. on Detroit’s east side by uniformed Police Officers Rodney Grandison and Jeffrey Clyburn. The car, the officers said, had been speeding through a residential neighborhood. When the officers approached the car, Wershe and the driver, Roy Grisson, got out of the vehicle.

Robert Healy, the prosecutor on the Wershe case, told the jury in his opening statement:

"...When Grandison gets up alongside the driver's window what he sees on the floor on the passenger’s side is...one of those shopping bags...not the paper kind, but the plastic kind—and it is stuffed full of money to the point where that plastic is stretched thin enough so that you can actually see the money through the plastic."

Regarding the stated reason for the traffic stop, Rick Wershe has asked a rhetorical question on several occasions: why, he asks, would we be speeding, risking police attention, with a large amount of money in the car? He's not disputing there was a bag of money in the car. He's questioning whether the police made up a reason for doing the traffic stop. In other words, he encourages observers to wonder if the police lied about their reason for doing the traffic stop. This implies they were lying in wait, that they were determined to arrest Rick Wershe and invent a charge if need be.

The money wasn't in Rick Wershe's possession. It was on the floorboard of the car. It could have belonged to Rick's friend, Roy Grisson. Or to someone else entirely. Being near a bag of cash doesn't mean you have it in your possession.

Wershe was standing outside the car when Officer Grandison sees the bag of money on the floorboard of the vehicle. It may seem to be a small point, but in a trial where the sentence is mandatory life, it is not a small thing.

Healy doesn’t mention any drugs to the jury because, at this point in the incident, there’s no sign of any drugs. But, according to Sgt. Simon, as quoted by the TV station: Wershe had 8 kilos of cocaine and a bag of cash."

"Police said Wershe was carrying two bags, one filled with money, one filled with drugs," the TV station reported.

This is wrong on both counts. As noted above, Wershe was not carrying the bag of cash at any time during the incident with the police. It was on the floorboard of the car and it was grabbed by his father and sister in a scuffle with the police, not by Rick Wershe. And he did not have a bag of dope. Period. As we shall see, the police claim the drugs were in a large box, not a bag. And they never actually saw Rick Wershe with the box, a fact the prosecuting attorney admitted to the jury.

It should be noted Assistant Prosecutor Healy’s opening statement to the jury was not exactly a recitation of facts and truth, either. Healy misled the jury because the police misled him.

Healy claimed the police officers didn’t know Rick Wershe, Jr.

"They will testify they don't know young Wershe from anybody. They never saw him before, didn't recognize him," Healy told the jury.

That is flat-out false, but Healy didn't know it because the police lied to the trial prosecutor, too. The officer who arrested Wershe knew him and knew him well. That officer lied under oath on the witness stand. There's proof.

After Wershe went to prison, the FBI approached him and asked him to help them with a covert sting operation intended to catch corrupt cops. As part of the discussion, Rick Wershe told FBI Special Agent Herman Groman that Officer Grandison had committed perjury—lied—when he testified at the Wershe trial that he didn’t know the young man he had arrested.

Agent Groman arranged with prison officials to have Wershe make a tape recorded call to Officer Grandison at his home. It was a pretext call that lasted 15 or 20 minutes. It is quite evident from the recorded conversation that Wershe and Grandison were/are well acquainted. Wershe says Officer Grandison invited him to his home on a number of occasions to smoke weed, before Wershe was arrested by Grandison in May of 1987.

Grandison was not indicted in the FBI police corruption case and the Michigan Court of Appeals was not interested in considering Wershe’s appeal, even though the FBI had audio tape evidence that Officer Grandison committed a felony and gave false testimony under oath at the Wershe drug trial.

Let’s return to Healy’s opening statement of “facts” to the jury.

Healy told the jury Rick Wershe had simply walked away from the scuffle taking place next to the car and walked between two houses to a residence in the next block. Officer Grandison follows Rick Wershe, according to Healy's statement to the jury:

"Grandison goes out between the houses onto Camden and he sees over here (pointing to a diagram) on the north side of Camden the defendant (Wershe) who is in the front yard of that address and he is at the front porch. Grandison then goes over and arrests the defendant, and takes the defendant back to Hampshire."

There is no mention of Sgt. John Simon by Healy. In fact, he was not on the witness list for the trial at all; a strange omission if he had arrested Rick Wershe that night. In fact, as Healy told the jury, Grandison was the arresting officer.

Assistant Prosecutor Healy told the jury they would hear testimony from a neighborhood woman named Patricia Storey who would say she saw Wershe on Camden St. carrying a large box, “a whisky case sized box.”

Healy made a point of it:

"Now, that's the first mention you're going to hear from any witness who testifies in this case of a box of that description," Healy told the jurors. He continued: “There's no mention of seeing a box of that description in the car that is stopped by Grandison and Clyburn, and you’re not going to hear any testimony from a witness who knows where the box came from. So, you might as well get used to that idea right now."

The Wershe trial transcript stands in contrast to the recent TV station report that, “Wershe was carrying two bags, one filled with money, one filled with drugs,"

Over the years, Detroit’s newspapers and other TV stations have routinely reported things like, “Wershe was busted with 8 kilos of dope” or “Wershe was caught with a large stash of dope.”

Compare this with the trial prosecutor’s statement to the jury: “you’re not going to hear any testimony from a witness who knows where the box came from.”

Channel 4 quotes Sgt. Simon as saying the eight kilos of cocaine related to the Wershe arrest “filled up the front seat of my car."

Here again, Sgt. Simon’s story is totally at odds with the trial record.

Assistant Prosecutor Healy told the jury a box was found in the back yard of a house on Camden, a block away from the Wershe traffic stop, and James Storey, the head of the household, was fearful when he realized the box contained packages of cocaine.

Healy says Storey called the police precinct, attempting to provide an anonymous tip. But, curiously, Healy told the jury that Detroit narcs assigned to a joint task force with the DEA were notified to come to the precinct police station before there is a call about a box of dope:

"...and they respond to (the Precinct) and they are there at the time this phone call comes in."

Hmm. Really? Let's break this down and think about it.

Why were the Task Force cops notified to come to the police precinct? By Healy's own statement to the jury, up to this point the cops have the Wershe family in custody, a bag of cash, but no dope. Just a bag of cash. Who the cash belongs to hasn't been established and, in any event, having a bag of cash is not a crime.

According to Prosecutor Healy, the phone call about "the box" is just coming in, but the special Task Force narcs are there when it happens, for some unknown reason.

So why were the Task Force narcs notified to appear at the police Precinct station before there was any indication drugs were involved in this arrest? It took them some time to get to the precinct station. Yet they were there when the call from James Storey came in, reporting a box of dope had been found. It is reasonable to wonder why a special Task Force team of narcs would be called to come to the precinct station, since there were no drugs involved at that point. Wershe’s defense attorney didn’t challenge it. Neither did the judge.

There are many things in Wershe's drug trial that don't add up. It was not, as they say, a slam-dunk case. If Wershe had had better defense counsel he likely wouldn't be in prison today.

Healy continued his opening statement to the jury:

"(The) members of this Task Force, they go to Storey's house. And they get there, and as they pull up, Mr. Storey comes out (of) the door and he's got the box. The box is taken by police officer Greg Woods of the Detroit Police Department Narcotics Section."

Compare that to Sgt. Simon’s recent TV interview statement: (the 8 kilos) "filled up the front seat of my car."

If that were true Sgt. Simon would have, without question, been a trial witness. He wasn’t. Prosecutor Healy said Detroit Police narcotics officer Greg Woods took custody of the box of narcotics.

There is an issue in criminal law called chain of custody. Sgt. John Simon’s claim that the box of drugs "filled up the front seat of my car" would have been a chain of custody issue. He would have been called to testify what he did with the dope after it "filled up the front seat" of his police patrol car. Simon's claim is not supported by the trial record.

All of this is not to say Sgt. Simon wasn’t at the scene that night. As a patrol sergeant, he did make the scene. Rick Wershe says that much is accurate and he even claims his sister, Dawn, spit at Simon during the confrontation in the street. Simon apparently joined a bunch of other cops who responded to calls for help from Officers Grandison and Clyburn. Simon may have been there that night, but the trial transcript shows he has, um, embellished his role to a considerable degree for a TV interview. He didn't arrest Wershe and he didn't have custody of the box of drugs.

Two other items worth noting:

The Detroit Police 911 recording system just happened to malfunction at the time the James Storey call about the box of dope came in to the police precinct desk, or so the police claim. That was their explanation for why they couldn’t produce a tape of the phone call about the box of drugs at trial.
Rick Wershe’s fingerprints and palm prints were not found anywhere on the box containing the eight kilos of cocaine. Nor were his prints found on the packages of cocaine.

Reporters and editors are notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. I’m regarded by some as a jerk and far worse for pointing out falsehoods reported as fact in the Wershe saga. But journalistic errors and mistakes have real-world consequences. The media-fueled legend of White Boy Rick has been largely responsible for keeping Richard J. Wershe, Jr. in prison for nearly 30 years.

It's a fact that Channel 4's Kevin Dietz has done a far better job than most Detroit reporters - print and broadcast - in reporting on Rick Wershe. The others know it. They watch and read his stuff. They have a habit of copying his reporting, rearranging a few words, and acting like it's their own reporting.

Here's why it matters: if Channel 4 reports Rick Wershe had a bag of cash and a bag of dope when he was arrested, a whole bunch of other "reporters" are going to spread that around and add to the deeply flawed White Boy Rick legend. It's called herd journalism or pack journalism and it has damaged Rick Wershe badly over the years.

Over the course of nearly 90 blog posts Informant America has shown over and over that routine media descriptions of “White Boy Rick” as a “drug lord” and “kingpin” are not supported by any facts. These false descriptions have had a corrosive effect on public opinion and that has deprived a man of his freedom for most of his adult life.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. (Michigan Dept. of Corrections photo)

For his part, Rick Wershe tries to look on the positive side and tries to get along with a growing number of very competitive reporters who are interested in his story.

When I sent Wershe an email telling him about the fact-challenged interview with Sgt. Simon, Wershe replied, "...either way it's another cop saying i (sic) was not what they made me out to be!!!"

True.

The Michigan Parole Board, on June 8th, is going to give Rick Wershe serious consideration for parole for the first time in nearly three decades. They've scheduled a public hearing in Jackson, Michigan. It’s about time reporters get the story straight.

‘I am 50% Up the Mountain!’ – Rick Wershe reacts to Parole Board Decision

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 16:50:00 +0000

This is a special edition of Informant America. Today the Michigan Parole Board voted to grant Rick Wershe a public hearing regarding a possible parole. It will be the first time he’s been this close to release from his life prison term since 2003.

Rick Wershe got good news on Good Friday. Credit for that observation goes to retired FBI agent Gregg Schwarz, Rick Wershe’s longtime supporter and life coach.

Rick Wershe, Jr. - a chance - at last

The Michigan Parole Board has moved one formal step closer to granting Wershe parole from his life sentence for possession of about 8 pounds of cocaine when he was 17 years old. Wershe is Michigan’s last imprisoned life-sentence inmate for a non-violent drug conviction when he was a juvenile. By voting to hold a public hearing, the Board has signaled it is open to considering parole for inmate Wershe.

Wershe, as you might imagine, is over-the-moon happy, but still cautious. “I’m 50% up the mountain!” he says. “Now we just need to get up the other 50%!”

The Parole Board, exercising its bureaucratic authority, reminded everyone who is in charge. They did not specify the hearing date. They told Wershe they’d mail the date to him. Go figure. The location wasn’t announced, either. In the past, the Parole Board has held public hearings for inmate cases in Jackson, Ionia and Detroit.

What we know is the hearing will be at least thirty days from now. That is established procedure in all cases.

A hearing in parole cases is scheduled to give both sides of the question a chance to respond publicly. In cases where an inmate is serving time for murder, for example, the public hearing gives the victim’s family an opportunity to express their opinion on whether the killer should be released. And the inmate’s family and friends get a chance to speak, too.

In the Rick Wershe hearing, he and his attorney, Ralph Musilli, will decide who to put on the witness list. It is not a free-for-all. The Wayne County Prosecutor will be given a chance to object, but Prosecutor Kym Worthy signaled last fall that she was “reconsidering” her position regarding parole for Wershe. Her “side”—law enforcement—may not say anything at all.

That would be in sharp contrast to Wershe's last parole public hearing in 2003, which amounted to a kangaroo court sham intended to keep him in prison. Perjury and conflicting testimony by law enforcement abounded and the Parole Board of that era did nothing about it. That won't happen this time. Wershe and his attorney will be ready for that, should his enemies try that again.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. has been in prison for 29 years, longer than many admitted paid killers. The major drug dealers he helped the FBI put in prison were released years ago.

Points to Ponder While waiting for the Parole Board Decision on parole for Rick Wershe, Jr.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 07:01:00 +0000

The injustice of the imprisonment of Richard Wershe, Jr.—White Boy Rick—is slowly but steadily gaining public attention through various media stories. Wershe is awaiting word on whether the Michigan Parole Board will consider him for parole soon. He's in the 29th year of a life prison term for a non-violent drug conviction. This post is a redacted and updated reprint of a previous piece on July 12, 2015.

Rick Wershe, Jr. still needs your help in his battle for justice. His prospects are looking good but he's been disappointed before. He needs his growing public support to continue.

It's time for Michigan politicians to get involved in Rick Wershe's case.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

The story of Richard Wershe Jr.’s life sentence for being a teenaged, non-violent drug dealer (that’s what he was) is as much about the politics of crime as it is about crime. Reading this, keep the notion of politics and “We, the people” in mind. Wikipedia says politics is from the Greek word politikos. That is, of, for or relating to citizens.

Rick Wershe helped the FBI put corrupt Detroit cops in prison and put the spotlight on some who should be behind bars. A strong case can be made that Rick Wershe is still in prison because of a Detroit political vendetta. There are some in Detroit who want to keep him in prison until he dies.

At the time Rick Wershe was convicted—1988—Michigan had a law mandating a life sentence for anyone convicted in a case involving over 650 grams of cocaine. That's about a pound and a half. Rick’s prosecution involved eight pounds of cocaine. His trial judge, Thomas Jackson, had no choice once the jury reached its guilty verdict. Rick Wershe was sentenced to mandatory life.

In 1992, the Michigan Supreme Court struck down the law, which was, at that time, the toughest in the nation. The justices ruled the 1978 law was "unduly disproportionate" to the crime. They concluded it violated the State Constitution. Former Michigan Governor William Milliken has been quoted as saying signing the 650 mandatory life law was “the worst mistake of my career.”

All inmates convicted under that harsh law who were NOT involved in a violent crime, and who were juveniles when they were convicted, have been released from prison; all except one: Richard Wershe, Jr.

If, as the evidence suggests, Rick Wershe is in prison for political vendetta reasons the people of Michigan should ask and keep asking some hard questions about wasting tax dollars to satisfy a vendetta by some Detroit criminal “justice” advocates.

It’s costing Michigan taxpayers about $44,000 per year to keep Rick Wershe, Jr. in prison for helping the FBI prosecute corruption in Detroit. He’s been behind bars since 1988. That means the taxpayers have paid about one million dollars—give or take a hundred-thousand bucks here or there—to punish Wershe under the totally false premise that he was—and remains—a menace to society.

Some months ago I filed a request under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act for Rick Wershe’s “disciplinary” file from the Oaks Correctional Facility where he is serving his life sentence. My request was officially denied…because... no such file exists. A prison official told me Rick Wershe is as close to a “model” prisoner as there is.

There is no question violent criminals, especially repeat offenders, need to be in prison for very long sentences and in some cases, life. But Rick Wershe was never involved in violent crime. He never ordered anyone killed. He never hurt anyone. Yet, he remains in prison while over the years multiple-murder killers -hitmen - have been set free by the Michigan Parole Board.

An interesting thing has happened in Michigan politics in recent times. People who once loudly proclaimed their devotion to law-and-order are beginning to wonder if a broad-brush, lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key policy is such a good idea. It’s not that they’ve been hit with a compassion stick all of a sudden. It’s about money—the waste of tax money.

That kind of tough-on-crime posturing comes with a hefty price tag. No less a conservative than Newt Gingrich says it is money wasted. Gingrich has been preaching prison reform from California to Georgia, from Alabama to Michigan, Gingrich has been penning op-ed articles in local papers arguing the time has come to quit wasting tax dollars incarcerating non-violent criminals.

Writing about the Michigan prison system in the Detroit Free Press in November, 2014, Gingrich asked:

“Are taxpayers getting their money's worth from the program?

When it comes to our criminal justice system, the answer is a resounding no. We are not getting the public safety that our billions should be providing us. In state after state, we have overused imprisonment, even for low-risk offenders.”

Taking aim at Michigan specifically, Newt Gingrich went on:

“The state's correctional system churns through $2 billion (emphasis added) each year, and now consumes $1 out of every $5 of the general fund. And because of broad parole board discretion and complicated sentencing guidelines, people incarcerated in Michigan serve longer prison terms, on average, than any other state in the nation.

This approach might be justified if it was making us safer, but that's not the case.”

The way to quit wasting tax money on Rick Wershe is to set him free. His case needs to be front and center in the ongoing political discussion on prison spending. Rest assured it will be one of the campaign issues in the 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Current Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Tea Party darling who loathes taxes but has spent most of his adult life living off taxpayer money, is itching to become governor. And he has fought Rick Wershe in federal court in behalf of the Michigan prison system.

If Schuette gets elected it seems likely he will try to make a national name for himself being being the nastiest, cruelest, let-anyone-not-in-the-Tea-Party-die politician in the country.
Any Democrat smart enough to hammer Shuette's weaknesses would do well to remind him of the Rick Wershe case and shove these facts up his legal briefs:

Richard Wershe, Jr. was never involved in violent crime.
Richard Wershe, Jr. never had a drug gang.
Richard Wershe, Jr. never operated crack houses.
Richard Wershe, Jr. was never indicted or charged federally or locally with conspiracy, the crime related to drug trafficking organizations.
Richard Wershe, Jr. was never named as an unindicted co-conspirator in any Detroit federal drug case. His name never even came up in the Curry Brothers case, the Chambers Brothers case, the Best Friends case or any other major drug and murder trial in Detroit.
Richard Wershe, Jr. was never charged with operating a Continuing Criminal Enterprise, known as the federal “drug kingpin” law. If he was a “kingpin” or “drug lord” why wasn’t he charged as such?

Informant America has been reciting these facts about Rick Wershe for two years. Some in the media have just discovered them and try to pretend they are revealing some "news."

Whatever.

It’s true that Wershe—also known as White Boy Rick—was notorious in Detroit for a few months in the late 80s. But that was a result of shoddy, disgraceful reporting by the Detroit news media. The smearing of Richard Wershe, Jr. by the Detroit newspapers and television stations in 1987-88 is one of the most shameful episodes in the history of journalism in Detroit. As a former Detroit TV news reporter I don’t say that lightly. It’s a sad fact that reporters who branded him a drug lord and drug kingpin never bothered to ask for the evidence behind these law enforcement lies masquerading as fact. Look at the bullet point above and ask yourself; why didn't any reporter look to find out if the police and prosecutors were telling the truth about Rick Wereshe? You already know the answer.

If you believe the Wershe case is a grave injustice in our criminal justice system, and a symptom of larger problems, you need to pay attention next year, an election year, and not just now that Rick Wershe may finally get some delayed justice. Rick Wershe is a symptom of a much bigger disease in Michigan's criminal justice system.

White Boy Rick movie filming begins; Rick Wershe waits for Parole Board Decision

noreply@blogger.com (Vince Wade) — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 07:01:00 +0000

Rick Wershe still hasn’t heard from the Michigan Parole Board on whether they will consider a parole from his life sentence in a non-violent drug case. Meanwhile, the cameras are rolling on a film based on his story.

They didn’t have time to get to his case at their monthly meeting. That’s the story coming from the Michigan Parole Board, which was supposed to consider moving forward on the process of granting Richard J. Wershe, Jr. parole after 29 years in prison for a non-violent drug crime committed when he was a teenager.

They were supposed to consider the Wershe case at the March 10^th meeting of the Michigan Parole Board. But gosh darn it all, they just ran out of time, they say. So, they’ll take it up next month at their monthly meeting on April 14^th.

Telling it like it is, the Parole Board is under pending court pressure because Wershe has been treated differently than every other Michigan inmate charged with a non-violent drug crime as a juvenile. Every one of them has been given parole consideration—except Rick Wershe. That’s cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Richard J. Wershe, Jr. (Photo: Michigan Dept. of Corrections)

Wershe has several cases against the State of Michigan cooking in federal courts.

In addition, media interest in his case has been growing, aided in no small part by the fact Hollywood has discovered the Rick Wershe story and they are making a movie about it.

But appearances count in politics and public agencies and the Michigan Parole Board don't want to appear to be succumbing to pressure. So…Rick Wershe continues to wait to hear about a possible parole.

***

They love Rick Wershe in Cleveland. More specifically, the Greater Cleveland Film Commission and a growing community of film production professionals in Cleveland love Rick Wershe because the movie about him is being filmed there. Production is now underway. Why Cleveland? Why not Detroit, where the story occurred?

It's all about money. States vie for movie projects these days with tax incentives and financial rebates.The State of Ohio and the City of Cleveland are working to attract Hollywood feature productions through financial incentives for the filmmakers.

The State of Michigan, in its wisdom, decided not to compete in the film production arena.

In the summer of 2015, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill to end Michigan’s incentive program for film productions. The program was bringing in about $225 million annually in Michigan spending by movie companies. Apparently, that was chump change to Lansing. The state opted instead to give billions of dollars in tax incentives to the Big Three automakers to please, please, please build new factories in Michigan and, oh please, oh pretty please, don’t take the money, create temporary jobs and later replace the human workers with robots.

And there’s no point talking about the millions upon millions in tax incentives heaped on billionaire pro sports team owners to build yet another new stadium or arena where they can suck up even more millions from the entertainment-starved locals. But I digress.

The bottom line, to use an overworked phrase, is Cleveland and Ohio offered a 30% incentive to shoot the film there. Detroit and Michigan offered 2%. You don't have to be a math whiz to figure out where the movie people decided to take their business.

Ivan Schwarz, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, says Rick Wershe has, in a way, helped the economy of his city.

"Millions of dollars are going to be spent in our state, creating jobs and creating economic development for a city that really needs it,” Schwarz told me. “It’s sort of ironic that his War on Drugs story turns out to be an economic boon for the film industry in Ohio.”

Schwarz says Ohio, like several other states, is actively courting Hollywood to shoot movies in their cities and countryside and, he argues, giving the production companies tax and rebate packages pays dividends.

"(The White Boy Rick film has) a significant budget with significant talent that is shooting in this state and creating real jobs and putting real food on people’s tables," Schwarz says. "Really, that’s what it’s about. The trickle down is huge.”

Alas, political pooh-bahs of Michigan don’t see it that way, so the cameras are rolling in Cleveland.

Matthew McConaughey (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Matthew McConaughey has the starring role in the movie as Rick Wershe’s father, Richard Wershe, Sr.

Bruce Dern and Piper Laurie (Photos: Wikimedia Commons)

Veteran actor Bruce Dern will play the part of Rick Wershe’s grandfather and actress Piper Laurie has the role of his grandmother. Wershe’s father and grandparents are deceased.

Others in the cast include Rory Cochrane and Jennifer Jason Leigh as FBI agents.

Rory Cochrane and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Photos: Wikimedia Commons)

Cochrane was in Argo, Dazed and Confused and Black Mass. Jennifer Jason Leigh received an Oscar nomination for her role in The Hateful Eight. Early in her career she appeared in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Leigh is known to have been in contact recently with retired FBI agents who were assigned to Detroit during the time Rick Wershe was a paid teen informant. She’s made an effort to research the role, asking questions that will help her bring authenticity to the screen.

R.J. Cyler (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

R.J. Cyler, the Blue Power Ranger in the Power Rangers movie, recently signed to play the role of Rudell "Boo" Curry, the youngest brother of the family drug gang Rick Wershe infiltrated and informed on for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Rick Wershe was recruited by the FBI to become a secret informant because he was known and trusted by the Curry Brothers, a cocaine gang with political connection that had attracted the attention of federal investigators.

Wershe had a most unusual visitor recently. Matthew McConaughey, the actor, spent close to five hours visiting with Wershe at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee, where he is serving his prison term.

McConaughey was accompanied by Scott Franklin, the movie’s producer and Yann Demange, the director.

Wershe says it was a get-acquainted visit. They talked and laughed and shared personal stories. They are about the same age but they are, as Wershe observes, from two different worlds. He was impressed with McConaughey’s interest in playing the role and he marveled that the Hollywood star was “super down to earth.”

“It made me feel great about him playing my father,” Wershe told me. “Funny thing is, me and my Dad always loved him as an actor. I only wish I could tell him that Matthew is playing him, but who knows? Maybe he’s looking down from up there.”

What about the other inmates? How did they feel about a movie star visiting Oaks prison?

“There was a buzz, but nothing big,” Wershe says. “They just thought it was cool that he took the time to come see me.”

Wershe appreciated the response of the prison staff, too. He says everyone behaved professionally and no one pestered McConaughey for autographs or posed pictures.

He doesn’t say so, but you can tell Rick Wershe is impressed and moved by all of this high-wattage attention. But the most important attention of all will come from the Parole Board, presumably next month.

***

Full disclosure: I was hired early in the movie production process by Studio 8, the outfit making the White Boy Rick film, to advise one of the script writers about factual matters regarding Detroit, the Detroit Police Department, city politics and the like. I did not get involved in any of the script writing. My brief role was what might be called an historical adviser.

Currently I am hard at work on a non-fiction book about the Rick Wershe saga and how it fit in to the War on Drugs in the 1980s. There were national and international forces and events that had an effect on what happened to Rick Wershe. I intend to tell that tale.