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Investigative reporter Vince Wade in 1990 in Detroit.
Award winning, investigative reporter Vince Wade was a fixture on Detroit TV from 1972 to 1996, first on WXYZ and later on Channel 2 Eyewitness News. Before that, he worked in the news department of the radio station, WKNR.
He reported on the Mafia and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and he was on the list of a famous local hit man, Chester Campbell, and he had a bodyguard at one time after reporting on the Chaldean mob in Detroit.
Now, Wade who lives in the Los Angeles area, has launched a news blog called "Informant America," and his initial focus will be on what he considers the injustice of the continuing imprisonment of convicted drug dealer, Richard "White Boy Rick" Wershe Jr.
Wershe was arrested when he was 17. He's now 45. He'll use the Wershe story as a spring board to write about other criminal cases around the nation.
On his blog, he describes himself as an independent/freelance reporter, writer, multimedia producer, director and all-around pot-stirrer.
He tells Deadline Detroit he'll be engaging in advocacy journalism, using court files and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to report on Wershe's situation. He says he'll comment on things in his writings, more like a columnist.
Wade believes Wershe, who was a prolific informant for the FBI and Detroit Police, both before prison and after he went to prison, is being kept behind bars because he informed on crooked people with power. The Michigan Parole Board has refused to parole him.
Wade writes in an email:
I have started a new blog (Web log) centered around one of the most fascinating stories I’ve encountered in decades of reporting. I’m alerting you and a wide range of people about the new blog.
It is called Informant America and it is at www.thedimedroppers.com.
It all began last summer when retired FBI agent Gregg Schwarz called me for help locating a video of an award-winning series of reports I did in 1989 entitled “Who Killed Damion Lucas?” That series on WXYZ-TV about the murder of a young boy in Detroit turns out to be an important issue in the mystery of why a man named Richard Wershe, Jr. cannot get a parole from his life prison term even though he is eligible and he is credited with the success of numerous federal drug and public corruption prosecutions. The evidence suggests Wershe is the victim of a vendetta by some high profile politicians and officials.
Rick Wershe Jr. as a teen and today.“Informant America” will take a hard new look at that unsolved murder in the weeks ahead.
In Detroit Wershe was famous in the newspapers and on TV for a time in the late 80s as “White Boy Rick.” Here was a baby-faced, mop-top teenager who was called a “drug lord” and a “drug kingpin.” One bombastic local judge whose only evidence was sensational newspaper headlines declared Wershe was “worse than a mass murderer.”
FBI agents like Gregg Schwarz, who were very familiar with “White Boy Rick”, flatly say he wasn’t a drug lord, or a drug kingpin. He didn’t have a narcotics organization, a crew, a posse. He didn’t operate crack houses. He wasn’t involved in violence. The agents ought to know. “White Boy Rick” was working for the FBI as a confidential informant. Another agent says Rick Wershe is arguably the most productive informant the Detroit FBI has ever had.
So why is he still in prison when real drug lords and multiple-murder hit men have done time and have been paroled? That is a central question to be explored on “Informant America” along with stories about other informants around the nation, some of whom are wealthy after their life as snitches and rats. The world of police informants is seldom in the news but it has profound impact on the criminal justice system.
The Informant America blog isn’t fancy or pretty. I’ll try to gussy it up over time. I’m more concerned about telling the stories than in how the packaging looks. I will try to post a new segment each week. . I hope you will check it out.
