(WWJ) Richard Wershe Jr. — better known as White Boy Rick — is a free man today after serving nearly 30 years behind bars.
Wershe, who turned 51 on Saturday, was sentenced to life in prison on a 1987 drug conviction when he was just 17 years old.
Video shows Wershe outside walking, talking on a cell phone and, reuniting with loved ones just after he was released from a Florida halfway house.
"Richard Wershe was released today from TTH of Kissimmee Community Release Center after completing his sentence in accordance with Florida law," according to a Monday statement from the Florida Department of Corrections. "Mr. Wershe has not received any disciplinary actions while incarcerated with the Florida Department of Corrections."
"It's about damn time" reads the first response to WWJ Newsradio 950's tweet about this story.
Wershe's attorney, Ralph Musilli, said this day has been long time coming for his client, who plans to return to metro Detroit.
"Rick is looking forward to it, obviously," Musilli told WWJ, Monday morning. "He called in the office a little earlier; he was emotional, which is understandable."
After Wershe was locked up, for possessing 650 grams of cocaine, it was discovered he'd been an informant for the Detroit Police since he was 14 years old.
The teen's story made headlines around the world when the public learned that, at the request of Detroit police and FBI agents, he infiltrated local drug gangs and turned in evidence that convicted 14 dealers and gangsters. His attorney claimed that, as a direct result of Wershe’s help, the FBI was able to infiltrate a gang of Detroit cops that was transporting drugs from the Wayne County Airport to the streets of the city’s east side.
"They prostituted this 14-year-old boy, and sucked him dry for information," said Scott Burnstein, author, investigative journalist and friend to Wershe.
Friends and family say Wershe risked his life to help the FBI convict some of the city's most notorious drug dealers, although federal investigators maintained the teen was ranking drug lord in one of Detroit's roughest neighborhoods.
As the years passed, Wershe was long denied parole as the longest-serving non-violent juvenile offender in Michigan's history.
"This was Draconian; this was the kinda stuff that only happens in third world countries," Burnstein told WWJ's Brooke Allen.
"And I wanna emphasize that Rick Wershe wasn't brought down on a kingpin statute. He wasn't brought down on a continuing criminal enterprise; he wasn't brought down on a RICO case. Rick Wershe was a 17-year-old kid who was pulled over on a routine traffic stop in front of his grandma's house, and then happened to find cocaine. And that should be the rest of your life? That should mean that the government can lock you up for the rest of your life? I mean, that's insane."