Famed FBI informant White Boy Rick busted in Miami for allegedly smacking girlfriend
White Boy Rick — whose drug dealing days and work as an FBI informant in Detroit as a young teen inspired a motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey — was arrested in Miami Tuesday on domestic battery charges.
According to Miami Police, the youngest known informant in FBI history, whose real name is Richard John Wershe, got into a fight with his girlfriend at their Edgewater apartment Saturday after accidentally calling her another woman’s name while they were having sex. He then allegedly threw a shoe at her, punched her and snatched jewelry from her body.
Wershe, 53, was arrested Tuesday after the woman spoke with police, and was charged with robbery and battery and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight correctional center early Wednesday. He was out on a $5,000 bond later in the day.
Wershe — who began working with the FBI at 14 — spent decades in prison after being convicted of possessing eight kilos of cocaine when he was only 17. Only released in 2017 with the aid of a social justice campaign, he was immediately imprisoned again in Florida on an outstanding auto theft charge and finally left prison in 2020.
The alleged fight with his girlfriend of four months happened in an apartment at Quantum on the Bay at 1900 N. Bayshore Dr., at about 4 a.m. last Saturday. Police said that when the shoe he allegedly threw at the woman missed, he walked over to her and punched her in the chest, leaving a bruise.
Wershe’s Detroit-based attorney Nabih Ayad said the incident the woman reported never happened and that the woman made up the story while trying to steal his client’s watch.
“Our take is that it never happened,” Ayad said. “She took his watch and threatened to go to the police. And she filed a report that he hit her. I’m sure Mr. Wershe will look at a motion to dismiss based on the fact that this was made up.”
