DETROIT (WWJ) -- FBI agents and the Detroit Police Department are the targets of a lawsuit being filed today by Richard Wershe Jr., aka “White Boy Rick.”
The lawsuit — which is a combination of child abuse and civil rights violations — stems from Wershe’s time as a teen informant, which was detailed in a 2017 documentary.
His attorney, Nabih Ayad, says the government used Wershe as a child from ages 14 to 16, throwing him into the world of drug traffickers, gangsters, and killers.
Then, Ayad says, he became the scapegoat to cover up their conduct.
“Having worked undercover for the FBI and Detroit Police starting as a child at the tender age of 14, Wershe is the youngest FBI informant in this history of this nation,” Wershe’s attorneys said in a statement “The government used Wershe as a child from age 14 to 16, putting him amongst gangsters, killers, drug dealers and thrust him into the world of drug trafficking, and then all turned on him to cover up the illegal and embarrassing nature of their conduct.”
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Wershe was convicted in 1987 at age 17, and spent more than three decades in prison for a non-violent drug offense before he was released from the Oaks Correctional Facility in Michigan in April 2017.
He was then turned over to U.S. Marshals and transferred to a Florida prison to serve time for a 2006 offense he committed while behind bars.
Wershe, now 52-years-old, was released from prison in Florida exactly a year ago, on July 20 of 2020, and has since returned to Michigan.
A news conference regarding the lawsuit, which is being filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District, is set for Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. in Detroit.