Richard Wershe Jr.

: http://news.yahoo.com/cou...54444.html

September 29, 2015

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area drug dealer known as "White Boy Rick," who has been in prison for nearly 30 years for crimes as a teen, won't get a new sentence, the Michigan appeals court said Tuesday in reversing a decision that likely would have led to his freedom.

The court said Richard Wershe Jr.'s sentence can't be set aside because it was a legal punishment.

Wershe, 46, has been in prison since he was 18. He was convicted of possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine and sentenced to life without parole. Subsequent changes in Michigan law made him eligible for parole, but the parole board still has refused to release him.

On Sept. 4, Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway said Wershe was entitled to a new sentence, noting his age at the time of his crimes and other circumstances. That decision was suspended while prosecutors appealed.

"The trial court cannot set aside a valid sentence without a legal basis to do so, and as the trial court recognized, (Wershe's) sentence is not unconstitutional," said appeals court judges Christopher Murray, Michael Talbot and Kirsten Frank Kelly.

Wershe said he's disappointed but won't give up.

"After all this time in here you don't believe you are going to get out of here until the day you walk out of here," he told WDIV-TV by phone from prison. "I'll keep fighting until my dying breath."

Wershe helped the FBI investigate drugs and police corruption as early as age 14 and even after he was locked up, according to a 2010 letter from lawyers and law enforcers who had urged then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm to release him. She declined.

Wershe's attorney, Ralph Musilli, said he will ask the Michigan Supreme Court to take the case.

"He's spent 28 years in (prison) while they've been paroling robbers, rapists and murderers," Musilli said of the parole board.

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after all this time seems he's paid his debt to society.

[Edited 9/29/15 21:40pm]

his crime?

Rick Wershe Jr at his trial with his lawyer William

Bufalino and his parents.

>

: http://www.theguardian.co...-drug-laws

Brought into the fold as a police informant when he was only 14 years old, Wershe immersed himself with drug dealers and helped bring down violent kingpins, a corrupt ring of Detroit cops and a string of gang members. Nearly all – including a hitman who testified to committing upwards of 30 murders – got out before Wershe, better known as White Boy Rick.

His downfall happened in short order. After two years of aiding Detroit police, the world he came to know at the government’s behest was a lifestyle that, as a teenager, he couldn’t shake.

“Was I blinded by the money, was I blinded by the girls, was I blinded by the material possessions? Absolutely,” he said. Eventually, he was reeled in to the other side.

But the government has for years grossly overstated his significance in the drug trade of the 1980s, Wershe said. When his trial eventually began, his role as an informant wasn’t admissible in court, allowing the government to portray him – incorrectly, according to Wershe, former FBI agents and his attorney – as a high-profile dealer who ravaged the streets of Detroit. That was a status that prevailed over time in the eyes of law enforcement: in 2003, with a parole hearing imminent, the county prosecutor said the “sheer volume” of drugs he introduced to Detroit’s neighborhoods “confirm that Wershe is a serious danger” to the city’s residents.

read more: http://www.theguardian.co...-drug-laws

wtfluke is wrong here? does the word "railroaded" come to mind?

[Edited 9/29/15 22:02pm]

now you see. none of the usuals are chimming in on this thread. wonder why

^ wrong forum, maybe

free2bfreeda said:

now you see. none of the usuals are chimming in on this thread. wonder why

A. Who are "the usuals"?
B. What is the issue here?

The biggest question I have is, how can the police have recruited a 14-year-old to be a snitch? Seems like there would have been some law against using minors as police informants.

But other than that, what is your grievance? That others were released, while he hasn't been? Or are you going for some racial angle, because of his race/nickname?

Help me out here.

RodeoSchro said:

free2bfreeda said:

now you see. none of the usuals are chimming in on this thread. wonder why

A. Who are "the usuals"?
B. What is the issue here?

The biggest question I have is, how can the police have recruited a 14-year-old to be a snitch? Seems like there would have been some law against using minors as police informants.

But other than that, what is your grievance? That others were released, while he hasn't been? Or are you going for some racial angle, because of his race/nickname?

Help me out here.

if you are not a "usual" then the words do not apply to you.

my CONCERN about Mr Rick Wershe Jr is how he was obviously railroaded into helping the authorities only to be punished for his participation. this is of deep concern imo.

free2bfreeda said:

RodeoSchro said:

A. Who are "the usuals"?
B. What is the issue here?

The biggest question I have is, how can the police have recruited a 14-year-old to be a snitch? Seems like there would have been some law against using minors as police informants.

But other than that, what is your grievance? That others were released, while he hasn't been? Or are you going for some racial angle, because of his race/nickname?

Help me out here.

if you are not a "usual" then the words do not apply to you.

my CONCERN about Mr Rick Wershe Jr is how he was obviously railroaded into helping the authorities only to be punished for his participation. this is of deep concern imo.

Thanks, I was pretty certain I wasn't one to whom you referred as "the usuals".

I agree, especially from the standpoint of using a 14-year-old as an informant. Someone is going to have to explain to me how that is acceptable. I don't see how it is, and it appears that action is what set up Mr. Wershe for his eventual life of crime, and subsequent punishment.

One collateral thing tugs at my mind - how did a police snitch survive so long in prison? I'm guessing his role as an informant was no secret (it certainly isn't now!). My understanding is that police informants don't do well in the general prison population.