[imagesource: David Coates / Detroit News]

You might not know the name Richard Wershe Jr., but you’ve probably heard of White Boy Rick.

His story was turned into a documentary, as well as a movie starring Matthew McConaughey in the lead role.

That’s not to be confused with White Spiritual Boy, who Tokyo Sexwale claims stole around R41 quadrillion from banks including the SA Reserve Bank.

You can dive further into that bananas rabbit hole here, if you so wish.

Back to White Boy Rick – in a nutshell, Wershe was recruited at the age of 14 to be an FBI informant, before spending three decades in jail after being convicted of drug dealing and other crimes.

Now Wershe is turning the tables on the FBI, filing a $100m lawsuit against former FBI agents and prosecutors.

He alleges that he was coerced into assisting police while just a teenager, reports the BBC:

Former Detroit police officers, retired FBI agents, former federal prosecutors and the city of Detroit are all named in the suit…

In the 10-page lawsuit, Wershe alleged he was initially contacted by federal agents after his father reached out to the FBI, saying his daughter was dating a known drug dealer.

He recalled meeting regularly with FBI agents and Detroit police officers to provide information on Detroit’s drug gangs.

Image: David Guralnick / Detroit News

“Had I not been an informant for the task force, I would never have gotten involved with drug gangs or criminality of any sort,” he wrote in the filing.

Wershe was “coerced” to continue the work, he said, despite what he described as an attempted assassination by local criminals once his link to law enforcement was suspected.

Wershe says he felt pressured to deliver valuable information to FBI agents, and would sometimes be sent into dangerous drug dens in order to try and appease them.

When he fell foul of the law, Wershe says he was abandoned. Below via The National Herald:

“The justice system hasn’t been fair to me over the last 33 years,” Wershe said. “This needed to be done. The truth absolutely needed to be told. … Everything that we say will be backed up by documents and FBI agents.”

Wershe was arrested at the age of 17, and it was ruled that his role as an informant was not admissible in court.

He was released on July 20 last year, having completed his sentence with credits for good behaviour.

[sources:bbc&natherald]