Rick “White Boy Rick” Wershe, Jr. May Have A New Chance At Freedom

Tuesday, May 22, 2018 was a pretty good day for Florida Prison Inmate K70365, also known as Rick Wershe, also known in the media as White Boy Rick.

A staff committee representing the Florida Commission on Offender Review, which has the power to issue pardons and sentence commutations, seemed favorably impressed with a presentation arguing for commutation of Wershe’s Florida sentence in a car fraud and theft scheme.

Last summer Wershe was paroled in Michigan from a life prison term for a non-violent drug conviction imposed when he was 18. He served 29 years behind bars. He was immediately transferred to the custody of Florida officials to begin serving a five-year term in the unrelated car case.

Under Florida law a commutation “may adjust an applicant’s penalty to one less severe” but it is not to be confused with a full pardon, which is rare in the Sunshine State. Even commutations are hard to come by in that bastion of law and order.

High Priced Help

Wershe’s Michigan lawyer, Ralph Musilli, paved the way with the requisite paperwork. Several lawyers spoke in Wershe’s behalf, including Jeff Kottcamp, the former Lt. Governor of Florida and now a state lobbyist. Kottcamp doesn’t come cheap, but Rick has supporters in Michigan who raised the cash to bring the well-connected lobbyist on board to plead in his behalf.

Perhaps it’s more noteworthy that two retired FBI agents flew to Tallahassee to argue in Rick Wershe’s behalf.

Herman Groman and Greg Schwarz have years of experience with Rick Wershe. Groman was Rick’s “handler” or liaison agent during the critical years when he was working secretly as a paid FBI informant against Detroit’s Curry Brothers drug gang. Even after Wershe was sentenced to life in prison for his Detroit drug case, he and Groman stayed in touch. Groman visited Rick in Marquette State Prison and persuaded him to help launch an FBI undercover sting operation aimed at prosecuting drug corruption in the Detroit Police Department.

Young Wershe contacted his former lover, Cathy Volsan Curry, who was in Marquette in a drug rehab center, and told her he would like for her to help one of his old drug “connects” from Miami named Mike Diaz. In reality, Diaz was FBI Special Agent Mike Castro playing the role of a high-rolling Hispanic drug dealer.

Volsan-Curry agreed to meet with Diaz/Castro and that was the start of a major investigation that ended with the prosecution of about a dozen police officers and Cathy’s father, Willie Clyde Volsan, who was the brother-in-law of Detroit’s late mayor, Coleman Young. Cathy Volsan-Curry was said to be Coleman Young’s favorite niece.

The prosecution was a great victory for the Justice Department in Detroit but it marked Wershe as a snitch who tells on crooked cops.

The One Who Got Away

One target who almost got caught in the FBI sting was Gilbert “Gil” Hill, ex-boss of the Detroit Police homicide unit and later City Council member and President.

The street-smart Hill backed out of the undercover sting operation before the FBI could accumulate enough evidence to almost guarantee conviction. It’s a prosecution standard far higher than the one for criminally charging mere mortals. The U.S. Justice Department strikes a tough pose for the public, but it trembles institutionally at the thought of prosecuting public corruption, particularly if it involves black officials like Gil Hill.  It’s not for nothing that Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jesse Eisinger titled his book about the prosecution of Wall Street financial crimes by the Justice Department, “The Chickenshit Club.”

Special Agent Groman had labeled the FBI police corruption investigation “Operation Backbone.” It was a sly dig at the scarcity of gonads and backbones in the Justice Department.

The corrupt Detroit/Wayne County political establishment marked Richard Wershe, Jr. as a dangerous enemy who must be kept in prison until he dies. It almost worked. Wershe’s 2003 parole hearing was a kangaroo court farce, but by 2017 there was sufficient legal and media pressure to prompt a second parole hearing, which ended with Wershe being placed on parole.

A Law Enforcement Father Figure

Gregg Schwarz worked only briefly with Rick Wershe at the tail end of the Curry investigation. But Schwarz, like Groman, has a strong sense that the title the Department of Justice should mean something. Justice—doing the right thing—should prevail over prosecution statistics every time.

Schwarz thinks it’s wrong that federal law enforcement recruited Rick Wershe, Jr. at age 14, to be a soldier in the War on Drugs, only to abandon him when things got sticky. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney in Detroit did nothing to help Wershe when he was facing local drug charges, even though former FBI agent John Anthony described young Wershe as “arguably the most productive drug informant the Detroit FBI had in that era.”

Schwarz had kept in touch with Rick Wershe almost weekly in the 30 years he has been incarcerated. Schwarz has been a one-man pep squad, a sounding board and a source of guidance and advice. He was a surrogate father figure. Rick’s real father did none of those things. Richard Wershe, Senior was an abusive absentee father. As Rick Wershe told the Michigan Parole Board at his 2003 hearing, “I really didn’t have any parental supervision…I was basically raising myself.”

Groman and Schwarz made strong presentations to the Florida prisons staff, arguing that Wershe should get a break after all the help he has given law enforcement over the years. On their own, they did what their former employer should have done—years ago.

Wershe May Get A Break In September

The committee considering Wershe’s case for the Florida Commission on Offender Review impressed Rick’s advocates as being well-versed in his case. They had done their homework about Rick Wershe.

They expressed concern about his personal safety if they release him and allow him to return to Michigan. They also expressed concern about his ability to function in normal society. He was sent to prison at age 18. He’s been in prison for three decades—his entire adult life.

On Friday, May 25^th, at the beginning of the holiday weekend, Rick talked at length with Ralph Musilli, his longtime appellate defense attorney. They reviewed what had happened a few days earlier at his case review. Musilli says Wershe asked a logical question: how does keeping him in prison longer better prepare him for adjusting to life on the outside?

The “concern” about Wershe’s ability to adjust to being a normal, free adult actually sounds like a case of COA—Cover Our Asses. They are fully aware Rick Wershe—White Boy Rick—is a high-profile inmate. They know there’s a movie coming in September about him. They don’t want to make a mistake releasing a high-profile inmate. If something goes wrong, they don’t want it coming back on them that THEY decided to commute his sentence. That’s the way these things go.

FYI—the White Boy Rick movie comes out September 14^th. The Florida Clemency Board meets on September 19th.

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A Taste of Fresh Air

Rick Wershe, Jr. is in a minimum-security facility about an hour south of Jacksonville, Florida. He’s just been assigned to a work-release program which will allow him to do what might be described as parks and rec work for the local county. Most important, it means he will get a little taste of freedom, air on the outside, at least during daylight work hours. For a guy who’s been locked up for three decades, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this development.