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White Boy Rick · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is stuff you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: should know. Our ongoing fascination with Detroit edition.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, this is very Detroit. I was gonna
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: say ad Jason, but it's like, firmly in Detroit's not
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: even a Jason centered even because we're talking about white
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: boy Rick who if you have not seen the movie
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: starring Oh god, what's the guy's.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Name who played him, Matthew McConaughey.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No, he played the dad. Oh, Matthew McConaughey makes a
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: little more sense older than we are.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I know. I was like, did they dress him up
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: like a teenager?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah? How do you play a fourteen year old? I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: can't remember the kid's name, but I have not seen
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that movie. There's also a bunch of documentaries, but in
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: particular one that's pretty good about this kid in the eighties,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Rick worsh who was an FBI informant at the age
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of fourteen in secret.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is completely one hundred percent true, Like
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: this has been vetted, thoroughly researched, and his claims, although
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: they seem like, Okay, this is just some guy talking,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: you know who's in prison, just keeping himself from getting bored. Nope.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Like basically everything he's ever said about his time as
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: an FBI informant and a teenage drug runner has been confirmed.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: So this is an amazing true story. And it's also
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: a sad true story in a lot of ways too,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: because this guy lost a significant portion of his life
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to really stupid drug laws at the height of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: War on drugs, when everybody was so gung ho about
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: just lock them up, lock the drug dealers up, and
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: go ahead and lock up the drug users while you
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: do it too, and it was it was a bad
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: time to be caught with kilos of coke. I can
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: tell you that.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, after he had been almost induced into this lifestyle
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: by the FBI as an informant, and then when that
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: was as you'll see, when that was taken away. I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: think it's hard for a kid to give up that
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: lifestyle because that's his life at that point. Yeah, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: then you know, turned on him and there was cover
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: ups and Detroit, Detroit, and.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think to describe how the FBI induced
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: him to do it. You can kind of say that
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: they put a bunch of cash in his hand, Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: popped his collar, turned him around by the shoulders, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: shoved him out onto the street. That's basically how they
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: induced him to essentially become a member of the East
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Detroit drug scene, like drug supply scene. He was rolling
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: with like as big as you get essentially at the time. Time.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's go back, I guess to his
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: birth in nineteen sixty nine. He's close a couple of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: years older than me, And like you said, this was
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the East side of Detroit when he was six. This
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: is Rick Wirsch Junior. His parents separated, his mom moved
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: out to the burbs, and then generally he and his
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: sister Don lived with their dad, Matthew McConaughey, Richard Wirsch Senior.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And it was a time where the auto industry was
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: disappearing in Detroit. You know, the kind of familiar story
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of Detroit is that it fell into sort of violence
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and drugs and crack came along, and white flight happened
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in a big, big way. So Rick and Don and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: their father were a bit of an anomaly as a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: white family that kind of stayed where they were on
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the Detroit's East Side at the time.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And one reason why is because this was their neighborhood.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: White boy. Rick's grandparents lived directly across the street from him,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: so like these were his dad's parents. It was like
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: a family community. There were other people who were sticking around,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: but yeah, they were. They were definitely outnumbered by the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: people who were moving to town to essentially take over Detroit.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: And there was a market just right for being taken over,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and it was there was this one group called the
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Chamber Brothers. They moved from Arkansas and became some of
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the biggest dealers in town, so much so that at
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: one point they controlled a formerly opulent apartment building. It
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: was their stronghold headquarters that they sold crack out of,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: manufacturer crack out of. It was a big, big operation
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: and it was just right there in the middle of Detroit.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Because this is one of the most lawless times in
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the history of that city, entire history. Not only was
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: it the drug people, the cops were about as dirty
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: as they come at the time too.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So Rick's dad was a kind of
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a schemer, had you know, various get rich or make
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit of money quick scams going on here
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and there. He worked as a manager of a gun
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: store as well and bought and sold guns out of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: his house, including like taking a son to gun shows
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: when he was just a kid. But the result of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that was is that his dad knew and was, you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: had FBI guys like as his customers. He had agents
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that he was friendly with because they would buy guns
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: from him, and so he ended up like this was
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: sort of the entree into what would end up being
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: his son's work with the fbis that he just knew
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: these guys as customers.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And one thing I saw in there was an
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Atavist article that was really really good, but they basically
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: said that Richard Worsch Senior he was a hustler and
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: he had a fascination with money. That was his big
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: focus in life was to make money, and his son
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Rick definitely adopted that from him, Like he definitely got
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: that from his dad. So he didn't have a lot
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of options to make money at the time, aside from
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: the drug trade. But he didn't really get into that
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: at least not at first. But he was still doing
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: things like breaking into houses and making money that way.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So I mean, like he was definitely a street smart kid,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: but he just wasn't involved in drug trafficking yet at
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, his sister on took up a crack habit and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: started dating a guy named Terrence Bell, and Terrence took
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and as you'll see, a lot of people took white
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: boy Rick under their wing. I think he was you know,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I've seen interviews. He seems like he was a pretty affable,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: likable guy because it seems like he made friends everywhere
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: he went and like had these sort of older you know,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: these are rough guys obviously, but older guys taking him
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: under the wing and sort of saying like, hey, here's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: how you rob a house, here's how you do this.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And so that's what Terrence Bell, he was kind of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the first guy to do that. Taught him how to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: rob houses, taught him how to bust cars. There was
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: this one story where someone stole their family car and
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: they went after them, and Rick at fourteen, like used
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: his sisters twenty two that she kept under purse to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: shoot at these guys. Didn't hit anybody, but it was
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you know, he was like in the mix at this
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: point for sure.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that at fourteen, I had not
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: ever shot at anybody.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I had not I had shot a gun because we
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: had a friend who was a cop who had a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: cabin in the mountains, and so he would take us
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: up there to like shoot target practice occasionally. But that's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that was my only gun play.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: As a child, right, you never turned it on the guy?
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: No?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: No, no, okay, yeah same here. Yeah. So let's see
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: spring of nineteen eighty four, Rick Junior is fourteen at
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the time, and the FBI, I guess who were friends
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: with senior Richard Senior, were like, you know, this guy
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: is living in East Detroit. East Detroit is a hopbed
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: of this new crack epidemic. Let's go see if this
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: guy can give us some info because we're friendly with them.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So they showed up at the Worsh house in East
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Detroit and sat down with Worsh Senior Richard Senior, and
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: basically said, we just want any information you can have.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: We have a bunch of pictures here. Can you id
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: any of these people that we've been following but don't
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: know who they are? And Richard Worsh was like, I
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: don't know who those people are. I'm sorry, I can't
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: help you, but Rick Jr. Piped up and he's like, oh, well,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: this guy is Johnny Curry or that guy's big Man Curry,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: and just started pointing people out. And the FBI suddenly
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: was like, well, how much does this kid know. Let's
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: find out what he can tell us. And that's kind
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: of where the whole thing kicked off.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, they were interested in the Curry twins.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Johnny was little Man and I think you mentioned big Man.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: That was Leo. The two brothers, even though they were twins,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I guess one might have been a little bigger than
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the other. I'm not sure.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I guess I couldn't make heads or tails of that either.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they were the main drug guys on the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: East side of Detroit at the time, and they were
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: also interested the FBI in the Curry gang because Johnny Curry,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: who was little Man, was married to Kathy Volsen now
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Kathy Vulson Curry or then who happened to be the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: niece of the mayor of Detroit at the time, Coleman Young.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And so you know, we have a situation building here
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: where there there's clear kind of cover ups and corruption
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: already happening because the niece of the mayor is dating
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: like a known drug guy, and the Feds are like,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't have any allegiance to these guys,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: so we want to bust them.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Sure exactly. They wanted to take down the crooked cops. Right,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: So that connection between city Hall and the police Department
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and the East Detroit drug trade all ran right directly
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: through Kathy Bohlsen, Right, she was the thing that connected him.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: But after that, you know, that initial connection, the other
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: kind of tethers started to form between those two groups,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and before you know it, I mean, city Hall was
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: in the police department. We're in bed with the drug
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: trade in Detroit. Pretty quickly. One of the guys who
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: was a major player in this, his name was Gil Hilly.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: He was the homicide commander, the guy in charge of
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: all homicides in Detroit. And this was a time when
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Detroit had something like seven hundred homicides a year. Now
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: it's like one sixty five. Like that is a mind
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: boggling number of murders in Detroit, considering also that its
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: population had plummeted too. Right, Yeah, this guy's in charge
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: of all of those. His name's Gil Hill, and he
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: also popped up elsewhere too.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean strange but true. He was. If
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you've ever seen Eddie Murphy's great, great film Beverly Hills
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Cop from nineteen eighty four, he was the inspector Todd.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: He was the one that was always yelling at Eddie
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. And you might think, oh,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool, and it is pretty cool. But Gil
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Hill was not a good dude. As we'll see. He
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: took payoffs and tried to put hits out on this kid.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so he was on the bad.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Stuff big time, big time. And he also seems to
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: have been inoperative for the mayor from what I can tell,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: although I believe the mayor nothing ever stuck with him.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I don't even think he was ever indicted. He seems
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: to have been well aware of all this, especially because
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the person who the cops in city Hall and the
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: criminals connected through was his niece, who apparently he raised
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: like a daughter.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So at the time, this kid, he's just Richard worsh Junior, Ricky.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I think everybody called him. He's fourteen, and the FBI
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: is sitting in his living room and they're starting to
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: show him pictures now, not his dad. His Dad's just
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: kind of like, okay, so we'll have a seat and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: show these guys what you want or what you know.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And so, being fourteen, Rick said that he was. He
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was like, wow, these really important authority figures are paying
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: attention to be. Let's see what I can do. And
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: he just started pointing people out and the FBI said,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: we're going to do something a little unorthodox. I'm sure
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: that's how they put it, and made scare quotes and
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: rolled their eyes at the time the right exactly, I've
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: just got the wackiest idea. But what if you, fourteen
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: year old Rick became a federal informant for us the FBI?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: What do you think would you like to do that?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: And Rick's dad, being the amazing father figure that he was,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: was like, well, I don't no, son, it's up to you.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You're fourteen. Do you want to be a federal informant
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: and put your life on the line every time you
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: walk outside of the house? And Rick Junior said, yes,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: yes I do. And he actually became an off the
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: books informant for the FBI in nineteen eighty four, age fourteen.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a CI he was not legally allowed
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to do something like that obviously, so the FBI, like
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you said, he kept it off the books. He was
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: never listed as the informant, but they had to have
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: something listed. So they said, well, can we use you dad,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Can we use your name and have everything kind of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: flow through you? And he said, sure, that sounds good
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to me. So Richard Senior was approved in June nineteen
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: eighty four. Technic is the informant, but it was really
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: his son. And pretty soon, you know, because I said,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Rick was a likable kid and you know, made friends easily.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He made friends with a guy named Rudell Curry, who
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: was the little brother of the twins Johnny and Leo.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Little Boo was twenty three years old, and they they
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: became buddies. Like he was a twenty three year old
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: with a with a fourteen year old friend who like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of like hey Spike, Hey Spike,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: like one of those deals. He had this kid following
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: around and like they love cars and they love motorcycles
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and they loved kind of that lifestyle. And so before
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you know it, they were fast friends. And bo invited
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Rick to hang out hang out with him, like right
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: around in the in the car go to the roller rink,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and apparently the Johnny, one of the twins, is a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: guy who came up with the name white Boy Rick. Yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I gathered about a White
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Boy Rick was that even at fourteen, fifteen sixteen, he
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: could hang with older people and ultimately eventually betray he
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: did kind of like an equal Yeah. I mean, which again,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: like just stop and think that, Like that's just crazy
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: in and of itself, let alone the fact that this
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: kid is actually a federal informant, right, that was his role.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That was his purpose for making friends with Bu Curry
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: and hanging out with the Curry gang was to get
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: information to give to the FBI. That's why he showed up.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And he, like you said, he was so affable and
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: could hang that they opened him. They opened their organization
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: up to him, and he would be in some really
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: high level meetings. Like he knew a lot of stuff
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: that he kind of gathered over the next three four years.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: For sure. Uh, maybe that's a good time to take
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a break. What a setup, Yeah, I think so, especially
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: if you never heard about the story, Like can you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: imagine hearing this for the first time.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I know, I envy those people.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: All right, So we'll be right back after this and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: talk about where it's headed next stop. All right, So
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: little white boy Rick is hanging out with his his
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: older friends. They're doing bad stuff, and he's, you know,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: he's speeding information to the FBI that they're using like
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: kind of on a smaller scale, some kind of kind
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: of lower level crimes. I wouldn't say petty crimes. Probably
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: above that level, but nothing huge. But over a couple
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of years, like they are feeding him money, like you
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: said in Act one, Like I think they said, over
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the first couple of years, they paid him about thirty
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars off the books to you know, to use
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to buy cocaine sometimes and to you know, to make
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: sure he could kind of live that lifestyle. So before
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: you know it, little fourteen year old white boy Rick
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: is got a fur coat and a Rolex and he's
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: he has cars even though he's fourteen years old and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: can't legally drive, but.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: He still drove him. He had a white Jeep and
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the snowman was stintled on the back.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah he's still into cars.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, he has a thing for cars.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It turns out, but yeah, he made like thirty grand
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: over the next two years, which is almost one hundred
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: grand in today's dollars. Do you remember how much money
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: you made between the ages of fourteen and sixteen?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I made three twenty five an hour as a bus boy. Yeah,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that was minimum wage. I probably forty bucks a week
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I estimated I maybe made something like the
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: neighborhood of two thousand dollars over those those years.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, this is like you were hustling too.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: No, I mean I just had jobs here there, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I think if you put it all together, it probably
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: be pulled that over two years.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so a thousand. I think both of us liked
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: having our own money as kids, for sure, so we
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: didn't like my parents didn't give me money. I don't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: think your parents probably gave you money the right.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I had something of an allowed, but it dwindled as
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I got older, Like by the time I was thirty,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: it was almost nothing.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I wanted to buy I wanted to
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: go to concerts for seven bucks, and I wanted to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: buy records, and you wanted to buy cigarettes.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I wanted to buy cigarettes. I wanted to buy slim
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: gyms and twigs and Kingsbury non alcoholic pier.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: It's very empowering to make money as a kid. You know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I think that's not completely gone away. But I don't
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: think teenagers have jobs these days like we did back then.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: No, but you just said a mouthful chuck just having
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: whatever money you make. Would you say forty bucks a week?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably something like that, you know when I was
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: early on.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Right, okay, and you were empowered by that by walking
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: by getting that paycheck cash in it. I got forty bucks.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I'm fifteen years old. Imagine having ten thousand bucks at
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the end of a week and you're fifteen years old. Yeah,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: but that's how off the rails this kid's life suddenly
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: got because the FBI had pushed him into this life
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: and said, go go you know, you have some money,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: go buy a mink coke, Go buy a Rolex. And
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: this kid could do it. And I mean just the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: fact that he is still alive, wasn't killed back then,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and didn't manage to kill anybody or anything like that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Like he kept it together enough that like it actually
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: turned out about as good as it could. Although we'll
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: see that it turned out really rotten. But I don't know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure how to put what I'm saying.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It just seems like this could have gone so wrong
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: so many different ways, just from feeling like emboldened and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: powerful and strong from all that money he had at
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: that really tender age.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And there was no one as far
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: as I could tell in the FBI that was like, hey,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: maybe we maybe shouldn't let this kid do this. No,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: because he's a.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Child, exactly, And his dad wasn't saying that either.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So I want to say the impression I have of
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: his dad is that he was not a bad guy,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and he does seem to regret a lot of the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: decisions he didn't make back at this time. So I
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: don't think he was like just a bad dude who
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: didn't carry seems like he was pretty involved in his
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: son's life. The problem was his son's life included, you know,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: driving a jeep that said the Snowman on back and
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: selling cocaine for the FBI.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think what the takeaway is is
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that ultimately his dad said, I'll right, all right.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: All right, that's right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I'm really curious to see this movie now. I wonder
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: how mcconaughete plays this.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Dude, I'm sure exactly like you just.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Said, because he does not scream eastside Detroit.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: No, he really does.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: All right. So you said something about him avoiding getting killed,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: which is fairly remarkable. But he did get shot at
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: least once. In November of eighty four, he was shot
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: in the stomach by a gang member who said it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was an accident, but Rick was like initially was like, hey,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: they found out who I am. That's why I got shot.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: The girlfriend of the guy who shot him called nine
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: one one, and before the ambulance could get there, there
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: were some other gang members who showed up put in
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the backseat of the car, and he didn't know, like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: are they taking me to the hospital or again it
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: take me out and dump me in the woods, Like
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: what's going on? And perhaps so had it not been
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: for that ambulance showing up and blocking the driveway and
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: saying like give that kid to us, now.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that had a really like a big
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: chilling effect that he was ready to quit. And the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: FBI showed up at his hospital room and said just
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: keep going. They would have killed you if they actually
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: did know right. They wouldn't have let you go in
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: an ambulance. You would be dead already, so just keep going.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And I guess he was like, I don't know, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: they're like, got ten grand right here, and he's like,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: all right, you guys, you know me so well. And
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: he got back to it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And not only that, they said you can actually
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: use this Rick right, like you got street cred now
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and not many people, especially your age, have been shot
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and lived to tell about it. So like you're kind
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of a cool kid now in that and that gang.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And he kind of was that. I mean it worked
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: out that way. Yeah. I think in February of eighty five,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: after he had been doing this a little while, is
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: when they got their first like really big raid almost
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at Sting, but he had, you know, Rick gave him
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: information that led to about two hundred grand in cash
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: when they raided a house, some video equipment, obviously a
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: lot of cocaine and guns, like all the things you
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: would expect to find.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I saw they just had two punch bowls full of
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: cocaine just sitting out on the table.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Nice punch bowls are big.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: That kind of house, that's a lot of cocaine it
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: really is. Yeah. There was an FBI agent named John
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Anthony who said that that Rick was the most productive
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: informant the agency had in Detroit at the time, the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: whole city, not just teach Detroit. This is a fifteen
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: year old kid. I mean, that's a huge bus to
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: get two hundred grand and nineteen eighty five dollars and
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: punch bowls of cocaine. So he becomes such an amazing
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: asset chuck that at one point the Curry Gang bunch
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: of other big drug dealers from Detroit were going to
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: see the Marvin Hagler Tommy Hearns fight because Hearns was
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the pride of Detroit and this is a title middleweight fight,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I believe in nineteen eighty five, the hit man, right,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So all these Detroit drug dealers were going to watch
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the match, and they invited white boy Rick, and the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: FBI got him like a high quality fake ID and
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: paid to send him to Vegas, paid for his plane ticket,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: paint for his hotel, gave him some walking around money,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: and said, go, fifteen year old, go to Las Vegas
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: with a group of high level drug dealers and just
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: find out what you can. And he did.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's kids in Vegas at the Tommy Hearns fight. Yeah. Yeah,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I mean the story just gets crazier. After he gets
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: back from Vegas, part of the Curry gang engaged in
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a dry by shooting. It accidentally killed a thirteen year
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: old boy named Damian Lucas, and the cops basically made
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: this investigation go away. And Rick was like it was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: starting to kind of dawn on him because of this
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: personal tie that the Currys had with the mayor that like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, like this is now getting covered up
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: on a large scale because they've killed this kid, this
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: thirteen year old a couple of years younger than me,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and Johnny Curry gave Beverly Hills cop a guy ten
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: grand as a bribe to cover it up. And Rick
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: found out about this.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was riding around in the car with Johnny Curry,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: who had the who had Gil Hill Commander Gil Hill
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: on oh what is it called when you have it
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: on speaker? He had him on speaker and they were
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: talking about covering it up for the Curry gang, and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: he did like that was a that was a big,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: big turning point in this whole story. The murder of
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Damian Lucas.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So that FBI, you know, things are
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: getting pretty hairy. They cut ties with him just before
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: he turned sixteen. Richard Senior was now off the books
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: as the I guess fake in formant in June of
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and you know, it seems pretty clear
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that they're probably worried, like, hey, this has gone far enough.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: If this gets out that we've done this, it's not
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: gonna look great for us as speds. And this is when,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I kind of remarked earlier about how well,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: now this kid is in this lifestyle right and he's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: having the cord pulled on him, like the rug pulled
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: out from under him. And so Rick, you know, does
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: what a kid that age and that you know, not
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: quite yet fully formed brain would do, which is, hey,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going to keep doing this stuff. So he got
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: into the real drug trade after the FBI dropped him.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is It's disputed whether that happened after or
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: before they dropped him, so like during as he was
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: an FBI and foreman, and it seems like it's probably
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: there's a really good chance that it actually had happened,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: and that one of the reasons the FBI dropped him
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: was because his actual drug career was taking off quite nicely,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and they were like, we just this kid's getting too hot.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Rather than being like we're gonna bring you in from
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the cold, kid, like we're gonna move you somewhere, because
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: we we did this to you, we need to give
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: you set you up with a normal life. They just
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: walked away, like dusting their hands off and left him
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to this life and East Detroit as a what he
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: eventually became a very prominent drug dealer.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, all the connections he had made
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: were valuable connections, as you know, his his I don't
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: won't to say legit, but I guess he was a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: legit drug dealer. Yeah. One of the guys, the main
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: guys who kind of got him involved, was a friend
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: he made through those connections with the Curries was a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: wholesale cocaine guy named Art Derek. He was a suburban
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: dude who was operating some drug planes that were coming
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: up into Miami, and Rick became friends with him and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: his son, and he, you know, the kid sixteen years
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: old that at this point starts buying as much as
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: like fifty kilos at a time. As a cocaine wholesaler
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: himself is what they call a weight man. Like he's
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: not he's not operating a ring of like dealers or
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: anything like that, but he's bringing in the large amounts
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and selling that stuff.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Right, which he just by that, by virtue of that,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: he automatically made less money. I saw FBI agent estimate
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: he was probably making five thousand dollars off a key,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: but he was selling tons and tons of keys, so
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: he was making like really significant money. But you could
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: also take a single key and turned it into a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: million dollars, broken down into like and converted into five
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: dollars hits of crack if you were willing to do
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: all that. That's what the chamber Brothers did. Those guys
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: who took over the apartment building. They made an estimated
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: fifty five million dollars a year doing that. But I mean,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: like wipe boy. Rick was later implicated as being one
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: of the people who supplied the chamber Brothers with their cocaine,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: like he became a wholesale coke dealer. That's not necessarily true,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: but he definitely did supply plenty of people with their
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: cocaine as a wholesale coke dealer. And one of the
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: things that he didn't do this to me really stands out.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: He hung with the Curries, but he never became a
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Curry soldier. He never became a Curry drug dealer. He
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: had his own operation essentially going on where he sold
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: keys to other people, and he was just basically an
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: associate of the Curries, which I thought was super cool,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: like he just kept his own identity rather than just
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: being absorbed into the Curry gang.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, he ended up getting some of the Curry
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: brothers in trouble just from all the information they had
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: fed you know, the FBI. Over the years, they were
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: starting to make arrest I think in eighty seven they
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: indicted the at least the twins and some other people
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in their organization and they pleaded guilty at the time
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to drugs and racketeering. Obviously, they kept it quiet about
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the city government at that point. They were still like
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: not selling out, like the mayor and the corrupt cops,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and the city was like great, We're like we need
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to keep it this way. And I think that's when
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: we found out about Gil Hill, Beverly Hills cop Gil
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Hill trying to get this guy, Nate boone Craft to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: assassinate little white boy Rick. I think he offered him
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five grand and he tried to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: kill him a couple of times.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that you've arrived. If you're sixteen years
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: old and you're not going to be murdered, you're going
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: to be assassinated. That means you know a lot.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And the guy from Beverly Hills cop was the one
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: making the call.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, It's like, who would ever believe this? Right?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Nate Boonecraft later admitted to trying on two
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: different occasions to carry out that hit.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: So Rick is trying to capitalize on, you know, the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: curries now suddenly being not completely out of the picture,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but at least some of the main guys being rounded
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: up and kind of feel devoid the drug void that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that was left by them. And he starts dating Kathy Volson.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: She was twenty four, he was seventeen. He was making
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: about thirty grand a month and has three kids at
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: this point.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if they were all with her.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think they were, but I think his firstborn,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Keisha was And the fact that Kathy Volson started dating him.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: You said that, you know, he was a legit drug dealers,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: as legit as a drug dealer can be. She helped
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: legitimize him like she is a and she was, especially
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: at this time, a big, big deal in East Detroit,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden like this essentially like East
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Detroit royalty, like criminal royalty. He comes down, is like,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna start dating you now, white boy Rick, and
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: she she essentially like just put that seal of approval
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: on him that that just kind of really gave him
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a certain luster in that area.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and presumably did not get arrested herself for you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: having sex with an underage kid.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: No, no, I think they had other things in mind.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: But even still, she she would not have gotten arrested
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: because she had Detroit p D keeping tabs on her
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: as protection, because the mayor had ordered the DPD to
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: constantly surveil her to make sure she was okay, not
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to catch her with anything, in fact, to look the
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: other way on it. So she can essentially do anything
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: she wanted to, and it would have been fine.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: For her for sure. All Right, Well, let's take our
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: second break and we'll finish up with the saga of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: White Boy Rick.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Right after this, yes, okay, chuck, So the party ends.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: On May twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, the Detroit police
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: decide that Rick needs to go down. If Nate Boonecraft
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: can't kill him, we're just gonna do it the old
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: fashioned way and arrest him and just block him up.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: And they found thirty grand in cash in his car.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: They also found eight keys of cocaine that was stashed
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: under a neighbor's porch that Rick said, yeah, that's mine. Yeah,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: he was seventeen, so he's still a juvenile. And he
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: got arrested with eight keys and thirty grand in cash.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: He made bail, and then a few months later, in October,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: he was arrested again, this time with five kilos of
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: cocaine and guns, drug paraphernalia, the whole thing even worse.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Some of this stuff was found in his dad's house
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and his grandparents' house, which means they could have gone
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: to prison, lost their houses like they really had them.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: If they didn't have him in May, they really had
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: him in October, right, And so around about this time,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the name white Boy Rick becomes much more widely known,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: not just in East Detroit, but in Detroit as a whole,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: and then very quickly across the nation because it was
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: such a crazy novelty. Yeah, that there was this seventeen
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: year old white kid who was essentially the only white
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: kid in East Detroit's drug trade and seemed to be
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: pretty powerful. And in fact, the media, in particular Chris
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Hansen really what's the word I'm looking for, I don't know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: fraudulently inflated the importance of white boy Rick, like right
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: out of the gate, just because it was so novel.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, the it's the media, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that's what the media does, so they, Yeah, it was
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: very sensationalized. You know, this stuff obviously happened, but it's like, hey,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: let's run, you know, another sort of injustice basically was like, hey,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: let's run with his story because this is a kid
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and it'll you know, there weren't clicks at the time,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: but like it'll get views or whatever on our on
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: our station and in our newspaper. So it was a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: big sort of sensational trial. When he finally was brought
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: forward the following January, and at the beginning the Feds
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: met with Rick and his dad and his mom are like, Hey,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: if you want to testify and turn state's evidence against
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: this everybody, basically, you can do that and we're gonna,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we can help you out. And he was like, dude,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I would get killed so fast, your head would spend
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: so no, thank.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You, right, yeah, So he passed on that. He was like,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna see what I can do with
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the jury. He actually felt pretty good about his chances
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: because they hadn't found the eight keys on him. They
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: found it under a neighbor's porch. Like there were all
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: sorts of extenuating circumstances. The problem was he had the
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: full force and weight of Detroit City Hall and the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Detroit Police Department against him. In every back channel you
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: can imagine in the city at that time. They were
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: working to get him convicted as badly as he could
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: be convicted. The media wasn't helping somebody. I think Chris
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Hansen again, he started in Detroit. He would go on
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: to be the to Catch a predator guy. They showed
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: an org chart which showed all of the city's biggest
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: drug dealers, and guess who was at the very top.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: The kingpin they portrayed as the guy who supplied all
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: of the big drug dealers in Detroit. Why no other
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: than white boy Rick, Because remember they were trying to
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: really kind of make this even more sensational than it
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: already was, so they just said, well, this guy's actually
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: the guy. Can you believe that? And that did not
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: help his chances either, because he started to be seen
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: as if there's a crack epidemic in Detroit, this guy
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: is ground zero for the problem.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. They did not disclose in the trial
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: at any point that he was a federal informant that
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: he was a CI. He said later, like, you know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Rix talked a lot about this over the years, but
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: he later claimed that he was that the lawyers that
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: they assigned him the public defenders were connected to the mayor,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: who obviously was kind of trying to make all this
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: go away and cover up for everything on his family side,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and was like, hey, lock this kid away basically, and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: make sure these lawyers make sure that happen one of
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: those And you know that hasn't been proven, but this
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: is what Rick said, makes a lot of sense. And
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: one of those lawyers that was on his quote unquote
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: team went on to fight his parole in two thousand
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: and three. So that kind of says it all.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: It really does. Yeah, that's not good defense right there.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: The judge who convicted him said that he was worse
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: than a mass murderer during his sentencing, I believe, And
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: even if the judge hadn't wanted to do this, she
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: had no choice. He was given life in prison without
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: parole at age seventeen. And the reason why the judge
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: had no choice is because about ten years earlier, Michigan
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: had passed a law called the six fifty Lifer Law,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: where if you were caught with six hundred and fifty
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: grams or more of cocaine, which is about one and
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: a half pounds or a little under half of a kilo,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: you got a life sentence without parole, no questions asked.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: If you were convicted of that, you went to prison
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: for life. And this kid was seventeen and got that
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: sentence and was told that he was worse than a
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: mass murderer. So things were not looking very good for
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: him when he was sentenced. After he was convicted, Yeah,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: It was a period in a country where mandatory minimums
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: were kind of popping up all over the place for
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: what it's worth The governor who signed that one said
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it was the greatest mistake of his career. Probably didn't
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: make Rick feel much better. But after the trial, Matthew
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: McConaughey is giving interviews and he's basically saying, like, hey,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: we were federal informants. My son at fourteen was a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: federal informant. But at this point, like this wasn't disclosed
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in the trial or anything, so everyone thinks it's just
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: this dad kind of ranting this crazy talk. No one's
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: taking him seriously. They didn't have any kind of credibility.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: And in nineteen ninety one, in prison, Rick starts working
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: for the FEDS again from prison in an operation called
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Operation Backbone.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Right. One of the FBI agents who had worked with
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: him before, I think he was the first one who
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: turned Rick into an informant at age fourteen's name is
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Greg Schwartz. He came to him years later for this
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Operation Backbone and said, we've been listening in to the
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Curries for years now, and we are it's quite clear
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: that they are in bed with the Detroit Police Department
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: and City Hall and it's time for us to take
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: them down. We need your help. So he and Kathy
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Vohlsen were they'd broken up, but they remained friendly and
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: she would visit him in prison pretty regularly. So because
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: she was the thing that everything centered on, he basically
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: used her to infect the drug and city hall connection
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: with a DEA agent I'm sorry, FBI agent who went
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: under cover and carried out like this highly successful operation Backbone.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a big They got eleven cops. Other
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: people obviously were arrested, but they got, you know, eleven
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: crooked cops out of that. One of them was, I mean,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: several of them were like kind of in the Mayor
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Young's inner circle. I think his favorite bodyguard was implicated.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: His brother in law, who was Kathy Bolson's father, was implicated,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: and she was he been implicated at first and initially charged,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: but the charges on her were dropped.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. One of the things I saw, Chuck,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: that one of the cops the Detroit cops did, was
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: asked to do as part of this sting, was to
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: carry an assault rifle around airport security so that it
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: could be taken aboard a plane to be used in
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: a hit in Chicago. And he did it. Like that's
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: how dirty the cops were and the FBI was the one.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: They were the ones setting him up because this undercover
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: agent has totally infiltrated this group. Because white Boy Rick
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: vouched for him over and over again and introduced him
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: to Kathy Wolson Curry, who kind of tacitly vouched for
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: him too. It was about as great of an operation
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: as you could hope for if you're an FBI person.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: The mayor almost came very he came very close to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: going down to he didn't. And yet despite all this cooperation,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: despite all the stuff he had done for the FBI
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: up to this point, he could not get paroled to
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: save his life.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: No, I think you know you said it was about
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: it went about as well as it could. I think
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it quite didn't because or didn't quite because they they
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: would have loved to have gotten the mayor, and they
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: would have loved to have gotten the higher ups in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the police department. They ended up getting, you know, rank
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: and file cops. They didn't get Gil Hill. They had
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: a literally like Rick testified, like, hey, I heard a
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: phone call where Beverly that guy from Beverly Hills cop
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: agreed to cover up that kid's killing from the drive
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: by shooting and he was never charged, so you know,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: they they didn't get the big fish, but they certainly
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: got enough people. I think this was not too long
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: after the Mary and Barry scandal smoking crack as a mayor,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: like a high profile mayor, and I think there was
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of just like, hey, we don't need another
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: scandal of another high profile mayor in this country, like
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: doing the wrong thing, right.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: So Greg Schwartz actually he showed up. He said, Okay,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: you helped us out. It was good enough for us
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: to reward you. So we're going to move you to
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a medium security prison in Florida, and we're going to
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: basically put you under witness protection under an assumed name.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: And while he was there in Florida, this was I
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: think up to the two thousands, so he was in
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Florida for a while. He was just doing his thing.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: And remember we talked about how much he loved cars. Well,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: he was caught running or at least participating in a
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: car theft ring, a stolen car ring. From prison, he
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: was helping coordinate the whole thing. And that's tough to
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: do and not get caught because eventually your conversation is
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: going to be overheard. Or listened to, and you're going
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: to get in trouble, and that's exactly what happened. They
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: got him on racketeering charges in two thousand and five.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that lands him back in Michigan in prison,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and this whole time, White boy Rick is in prison
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: for you know, decades. At this point, h and everyone
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: else that he was had been you know, associating with,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: was getting out. Johnny Curry got out ninety nine, that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: hitman that tried to kill him twice and admitted to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: murdering thirty people, did seventeen years and then cooperated with
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the cops. That mandatory minimum that sent him the six
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: fifty lifer that was overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, and everyone else that had been
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: impacted by that law ended up free within six years.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: But Rick stayed in prison. He just kept getting denied parole.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I think the first one was in two thousand and three.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: He asked, like, you know, some of the Feds that
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: he was working with to help him out, and they
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. One of the guys that he had
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: worked with, a guy named Herman Groman, basically was like,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: all right, I'll tell him about Operation back Bone, and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: he helped us out with that, but not the stuff
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: from when you were fourteen.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the problem is like none of that was ever
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: going to help because white boy Rick had broken a
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: really big rule by ratting out on cops. He was
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: smart enough to not read out his drug dealer friends,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: but he definitely read it out on the cops, and
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: the cops went to great links to make sure he
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: stayed in prison, to make an example out of him,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and to punish him too. And so, in a really
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: unusual move, a bunch of Detroit police officers went to
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: his two thousand and three parole hearing and basically just lied,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: lied about what a horrible criminally was, like what a
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: terrible effect he had on Detroit, and how he really
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: needed to stay in prison, and he got denied, got
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: denied again in two thousand and eight, and he got
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: denied again in twenty twelve too.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that Greg Schwartz, the FED this time, actually wrote
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: a letter saying like, hey, he did a lot of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: stuff with us. Actually it wasn't just Operation Backbone, that
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Damian Lucas murder. He tried to help us out with that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: That thirteen year old kid who got killed. And he said,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you know, we never disclosed this stuff because he was
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: a kid, and we would have been exposed and embarrassed
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: at the federal government was working with a kid in
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: this capacity. They rejected that one too, even though we
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: finally had someone willing to vouch for him. And until
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, there wasn't a lot of I mean, aside
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: from just you know, the earlier time when he actually
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: got sent to prison, it had really quieted down about
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: you know, white boy Rick, like no one kind of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: knew who he was. And then in twenty thirteen that
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: there was a guy named Seth Ferranti who was an
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: incarcerated journalist. He wrote a column at The Fix that
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: reported a lot of this stuff, and then that was
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: picked up by Evan Hughes who wrote that Adams article
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen that you were talking about that we
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: read and that was like that was it, all of
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: a sudden, it was fully out there. Like he didn't
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: even get k Goto's dad's funeral. His dad died while
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: he was in prison. And he has like six grandchildren
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: at this point in his forties, which is remarkable, and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: he's like not met these kids at this point.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: No, so one thing that makes it like really kind
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: of gets across. How how just under the thumb of
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: the Detroit Police Department, this kid was still decades on.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: A judge, Judge Dana Hathaway, I think she was the
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: original judge in his in his trial, she threw out
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: the life sentence as a judge, right, this wasn't something
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: she did in her leisure time. Like, she officially threw
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: out his life sentence, and prosecutors appealed and won. So
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: he had his life sentence like was upheld what thirty
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: years later and Hathaway even went on the record saying
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: that this whole thing was very fishy. Finally, two years later,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: he's granted parole. This is thirteen years after the last
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: person who was given a life sentence under that Michigan
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: six point fifty life for law had already been led out.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: He was the only one, and his incarceration continued for
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: thirteen more years. He got out in twenty seventeen, age
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: forty seven. And you would think that would be the
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: end of the story, Chuck, But it was not.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Wasn't. No, he gets that parole and probably or at
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: least maybe had something to do with those movies that
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the documentary in the Matthew McConaughey movie,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: because certainly high profile enough to like bring his name
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: back into the forefront and then people start asking questions
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that at FED but he had to
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: stay or I guess, got recentence from the prison sentence
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: in Florida for that stolen car stuff. So he's back
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in jail in Florida. He was, you know, bouncing back
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and forth. Finally released from there in July twenty twenty.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I think he was fifty one at the time, and
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: was like, I need some money, I need some restitution,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and he sued the Feds of he didn't get anything.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: No, the judge said the statute of limitations had run
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: out in two thousand and six, and he's like, well,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: I couldn't really say anything while I was in jail
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: because I would have gotten beaten up on a daily
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: basis by the guards. And they said, sorry, Paal, like
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: none of your your very legitimate suits against the federal
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: government are going to be able to be tried. So yeah.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Apparently he's working on his own documentary project about his
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: life too. With the hip hop director Hype Williams.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I worked with Hype back in the day.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is he related to Freedom Williams?
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I have no idea Bute was one of the biggest
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: names in the game back then. Oh yeah, I'll tell
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you off, Mike.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, I can't I can't wait to hear this. Okay, Well,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: since I want to hurry up and end this episode
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: because I want to hear what Chuck has to say
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: about Hype Williams, I think it's time for listener mail.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Instead of listener mail, we're going to give issue one last,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: well not one last, but another reminder about our voyage,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: our Stuff at Sea voyage aboard the Valiant Lady of
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Virgin Cruises, which will take place October second through seventh.
• 48:10
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• 48:11
  Speaker 1: We're going from New York City to Bermuda, and we're
• 48:14
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• 48:15
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• 48:19
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• 48:22
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• 48:24
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• 48:40
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