... Curry Brothers, an east side gang of suspected traffickers. Johnny Curry, the leader, was married to Cathy Volsan, the attractive niece of Mayor Coleman Young...
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Wershe was represented by longtime criminal defense attorney William E. Bufalino II. Wershe says today he pushed Bufalino aside at the urging of Cathy Volsan Curry. Wershe recalls Cathy told him that her “family” told her that he needed black attorneys to represent him in the drug trial. At Cathy Volsan Curry’s urging, Wershe says, he hired two black attorneys, Ed Bell and Sam Gardner. Both lawyers were in Mayor Young’s orbit of associates. (Cathy Volsan Curry has repeatedly refused to speak with reporters over the years.)
When Bell took over Wershe’s defense he quickly withdrew a Bufalino pretrial motion challenging the drug evidence in the Wershe arrest. Bufalino’s motion made sense because Wershe’s fingerprints weren’t on the drugs. By withdrawing the evidence suppression motion, Bell and Gardner left Wershe without an issue to appeal should he be convicted. And he was convicted. In Wershe’s one and only parole hearing in 2003 Bufalino testified that in his opinion Bell and Gardner, both deceased, deliberately made sure Wershe had no basis for an appeal of the conviction that would keep him locked up for good.
“They hung this boy out to dry,” Bufalino told the parole board.
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Eventually Hill grew suspicious and backed out. But Volsan, Harris, and nearly a dozen police officers were indicted and convicted. Hill was by now a major Detroit politician with his own growing political power base. When Volsan and the cops were indicted in the sting that was set up with Wershe’s help, it had to be clear to Hill the FBI had been after him for five years as a result of Wershe’s work as a paid confidential informant.
In a sworn affidavit obtained by Ralph Musilli, Wershe’s defense attorney, one of the Detroit police witnesses who had testified at the parole hearing says he knew nothing about the infamous prison inmate and had never encountered him in any investigation but said he was ordered to testify “through channels.” He says in the affidavit that he spoke with Gil Hill about it and states Hill was involved in planning the witness lineup testifying against Wershe’s parole.
For Coleman Young, this was perhaps the ultimate outrage; a white FBI “stool pigeon” sleeping with his niece had sent his brother-in-law to prison.
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When Wershe had his parole review in 2003, the Wayne County prosecutor, Mike Duggan, sent a scathing letter to the Michigan Parole Board vehemently opposing his release, accusing Wershe of being a “gang leader” and “violent kingpin” who intimidated witnesses who “just disappeared.” The letter also accused Wershe of operating a “criminal enterprise.” “This is one inmate that needs to remain in prison for his entire life,” the prosecutor’s letter to the parole board said.
Another source here: http://www.thedimedroppers.com/2015/09/a-media-smear-that-has-lasted-nearly-30.html
Mark Twain said never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
My intent in this blog post isn’t to pick a fight with old reporter friends, newbie journalists or former competitors in the Detroit media. Everyone makes mistakes, including reporters, including editors, including me. I’ve made my share so this isn’t about casting stones in a glass house. The purpose of this blog post isn’t to hold any individual reporter up for ridicule.
The purpose of this post is to show how a steady drumbeat of sensationalized, distorted and in many cases just plain wrong reporting has contributed to the deprivation of liberty for Richard J. Wershe, Jr. for almost three decades.
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Narcs heard the White Boy Rick nickname from Derrick and loved it. They shared it with WXYZ-TV crime beat reporter Chris Hansen who introduced it to the public in the final installment of a high-profile, highly viewed series of reports in July of 1987 about a police investigation of the Chambers Brothers who arguably ran the biggest volume cocaine operation in Detroit history. The final segment of the five-part series introduced viewers to a young man Hansen called White Boy Rick.
To develop the series Hansen and a Channel 7 cameraman were embedded with a team of Detroit Police and DEA narcs who liked to call themselves the No Crack Crew. Some say Hansen was more than embedded with the narc crew; they argue he was figuratively in bed with the narcs with no daylight between the views of the No Crack Crew and what Hansen reported on TV. In exchange for hot drug raid footage some say Hansen became an unquestioning PR mouthpiece for a team of glory-hungry cops.
When Hansen jumped from Channel 7 to Channel 4 in Detroit he continued to exploit the White Boy Rick legend he helped launch. Hansen suggested to Rick Wershe that he do an interview with him about police drug corruption. Detroit FBI agent John Anthony, now retired, urged Wershe not to do it. Wershe didn’t listen. He did the interview and it spooked a lot of corrupt cops and Detroit politicians into thinking Wershe knew more than had been reported. All these years later Wershe realizes that interview may have contributed to the start of a vendetta against him. Today Wershe says he never knew as much about the spider’s web of drug dealing, police corruption and city politics as many people think he knows.