by
Author Vince Wade
Vince Wade, a former investigative TV reporter in Detroit, will release his new book in June on convicted cocaine dealer Richard Wershe Jr., aka "White Boy Rick," that will include allegations of corruption at the highest levels of the Detroit Police Department in the 1980s.
The book, titled: "Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and the War on Drugs," will be released about two months before the Aug. 17 premiere of the Hollywood film, “White Boy Rick,” starring Matthew McConaughey as Wershe's father.
Wershe, now 48, was convicted of cocaine trafficking as a teenager in the late 1980s and was sentenced to life in prison. Last summer, after serving nearly 30 years, he was paroled from Michigan, then sent down to Florida to serve a sentence for being part of car theft ring while he was behind bar there in the witness protection program.
"Prisoner of War reviews the history of a 'war' that actually began in the mid-1800s," Wade writes in letter to Deadline Detroit. "It explores the subtext of racial politics in Detroit and the United States, particularly in the 1980s when much of the country was gripped with fear of a crack cocaine epidemic."
"This failed effort to disrupt the flow and sale of illegal drugs is seen through the amazing tale of White Boy Rick, recruited at age 14 by the FBI because the kid knew all the wrong people."
In a phone interview from his California home, Wade says he names in his book Detroit reporters who repeatedly referred to Wershe as a drug lord and kingpin, which he believes made it tougher for Wershe to get paroled. He says there was no evidence to show Wershe was deserving of those titles with the amount of cocaine he sold.
"I take a hard look at how the Detroit media continued to smear his name with unsubstantiated, unsupported accusations of being a drug lord and a kingpin," Wade says.
Through interviews and documents he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Wade also says he raises serious allegations that high-ranking Detroit Police officials, including then-Chief William Hart and Homicide Inspector Gil Hill, covered up the murder of Damion Lucas, a 13 year old, who was accidentally shot in a drive-by shooting on the city's northwest side in 1985. The intended target was the boy's uncle.
Authorities suspected that the shooting was the work of the Johnny Curry's drug organization. Curry at the time was married to Cathy Volsan, Mayor Coleman A. Young's niece. Wershe, who knew Curry, was working as an FBI informant at the time.
Richard Wershe Jr. the teenager and the adult
Wade says evidence suggests police officials were looking out for the mayor and his niece and intentionally misdirected the probe so that the right people were never charged in the murder that remains unsolved.
Johnny Curry went off to federal prison for several years for drug trafficking, and Wershe began dating his wife, Cathy Volsan, until he was imprisoned. Curry is no longer in prison.
"I think the circumstances I show in the book are pretty compelling" that police officials were involved in a cover-up, he says.
Chief Hart, who served time in prison for embezzling $1.2 million from the department, died, as did Gil Hill, who served as Detroit City Council President after leaving the department.
The book will be available as an e-book and a paperback-on-demand on Amazon in late June.
