A
young Detroit boy is killed when someone shoots up his uncle’s house where he
was watching television. The uncle tells the police a drug gang had threatened him
that same morning. The police ignore the lead and focus, instead, on
prosecuting an innocent man. The Detroit FBI knew the man was innocent. One of
their paid confidential informants told them what really happened. An FBI agent
nearly went to jail protecting the identity of the informant: Richard Wershe,
Jr., also known as White Boy Rick.
The summer of 1985 was frustrating for FBI Special Agent
Herman Groman. He knew who had killed a 13-year old Detroit boy named Damion
Lucas. He was the innocent victim of a bullet in an automatic weapons fusillade
by members of a drug gang angry at the boy’s uncle over money he owed them. The
shooters riddled the front of the uncle’s house with bullets. One of them
struck the 13-year old in the chest, killing him. He had been watching television
at his uncle’s house when the gunfire erupted.
The killers were members of the Johnny Curry drug crew—a politically
connected criminal enterprise on Detroit’s eastside. Johnny Curry was married
to the niece of Detroit’s powerful mayor, Coleman Young. After the fatal
shooting Curry was angry that his guys would do something so stupid—and he said
so in a telephone conversation that was recorded by the FBI in a
court-authorized wiretap. The FBI was leading a federal task force
investigation of the Curry group.
The FBI knew the Curry gang was responsible for the
murder, yet they had to watch helplessly as the Detroit Police persisted in
pursuing an innocent man for the killing. FBI agent Groman and his fellow agents
had to be careful how they handled what they knew about the Damion Lucas
murder. If the wiretap information was mishandled it could blow the
investigation.
The wiretap wasn’t the only source of information the FBI
had about the killing of the little boy. They had a paid Confidential Informant
(CI) who told them he was present for a meeting of the Curry gang where they
discussed how to handle themselves if Detroit Police homicide detectives
questioned them about the Damion Lucas murder. That informant was Richard J. Wershe, Jr.—White Boy Rick.
Groman, now retired, says since several Detroit police
officers were working as part of the drug task force, it was decided they would
discreetly pass the word through channels that the Curry gang was responsible
for the fatal shooting.
The cops on the federal task force passed the info along
but nothing happened. The Detroit Homicide Section never questioned the Curry
gang about the Damion Lucas murder.
They focused instead on an innocent man. LaKeas Davis
had had a noisy argument with the dead boy’s uncle a few days before the fatal
shooting. But the uncle, Leon Lucas, told the police he and Davis had patched
up their dispute.
Furthermore, Leon Lucas told investigators two of the Curry
gang had called him the morning of the shooting and warned him his house would
be shot up because he owed the gang money. Yet, the police avoided
interrogating Johnny Curry or any of his associates.
What’s more, the morning after the shooting, FBI
automated telephone surveillance equipment recorded calls from Johnny Curry’s
phone to two unlisted numbers for Detroit police officers. One call was to a
sergeant on the mayor’s security detail and a second, longer call was to the
private police headquarters line of Homicide Inspector Gil Hill.
Groman and his fellow agents put it all together and
concluded someone inside the Detroit Police Department may be involved in
obstruction of justice—a federal felony—in the handling of the Damion Lucas
murder investigation. They focused on Gil Hill who was the boss of the Homicide
Section.
The investigative possibilities were intriguing but none
of this helped LaKeas Davis who had been charged with murdering Damion Lucas. The
police insisted on prosecuting Davis even though they had strong leads
indicating the Curry group was responsible.
“I firmly believed he didn’t do it,” Groman recalls. The
FBI agent reached out to Elliott Margolis, the defense attorney for Davis.
Groman gave Margolis what is known in court as exculpatory information. That
means information that exonerates the defendant; information indicating Davis
didn’t kill Damion Lucas.
“I’m all about justice,” Groman says. “An innocent man
was being convicted of something he didn’t do. I wanted to make sure this was
rectified.”
Margolis did what he had to do. He told the judge
presiding over the Davis murder trial about the information from the FBI.
Margolis wanted the case dismissed. The prosecution was having none of it. It
didn’t take long for Groman to get a subpoena as a witness in the LaKeas Davis
murder trial.
Groman’s tip to the defense attorney focused on the FBI’s
informant information. Groman treaded lightly regarding the wiretap. The
existence of the active tap on Johnny Curry’s phone had to be protected. The
focus on the exculpatory information was centered on revelations from an FBI
confidential informant. Therefore the defense demanded that Groman reveal the
informant’s identity in court so he or she could be called as a witness. After
all, LaKeas Davis was on trial for murder.
“It was kind of a tightrope I had to walk and, of course,
I didn’t want to give up the identity of the informant,” Groman said.
It's true the FBI works to keep the identities of its Confidential Informants confidential. But there was another factor in this case. The Confidential Informant in the Curry investigation - a paid Confidential Informant - was a juvenile. Rick Wershe Jr. was a teenager.
Even though Ken Walton, the retired former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Detroit FBI says there were no Bureau rules or regs about the use of juvenile informants at that time, Rick Wershe notes pointedly and with some bitterness the agents knew it wasn't right to use a kid to infiltrate a drug gang. That's why, Wershe argues today, they covered his work by putting it in his Dad's FBI informant file, since they had the same names differentiated only by Sr. and Jr., and that's why they had him use his Dad's code name - Gem - to receive periodic payments for his work on the Curry gang. In Rick Wershe's view there was, and to this day still is, some serious ass-covering going on at the Detroit FBI.
When Groman appeared in court the judge directed him to answer the questions about who the informant was. Groman refused to answer. The judge threatened to send him to jail for contempt of court. A showdown was brewing.
Even though Ken Walton, the retired former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Detroit FBI says there were no Bureau rules or regs about the use of juvenile informants at that time, Rick Wershe notes pointedly and with some bitterness the agents knew it wasn't right to use a kid to infiltrate a drug gang. That's why, Wershe argues today, they covered his work by putting it in his Dad's FBI informant file, since they had the same names differentiated only by Sr. and Jr., and that's why they had him use his Dad's code name - Gem - to receive periodic payments for his work on the Curry gang. In Rick Wershe's view there was, and to this day still is, some serious ass-covering going on at the Detroit FBI.
When Groman appeared in court the judge directed him to answer the questions about who the informant was. Groman refused to answer. The judge threatened to send him to jail for contempt of court. A showdown was brewing.
Groman was going to need his own lawyer to navigate this
sticky scenario. The local U.S. attorney’s office assigned an Assistant United
States Attorney (AUSA) to represent Groman and the FBI in the local murder
trial.
The morning Groman was due back in court he and a fellow
agent stopped at the federal courthouse to pick up the Assistant United States
Attorney assigned to represent Groman and the FBI in the local court case.
When the attorney got in the FBI car Groman tried to
sound cheery and optimistic. “I said, ‘Well, how ya doing? Are you all set? Are
you ready to defend me vigorously?’”
Groman remembers the federal attorney’s reply.
“’Well,’ she said, ‘I was thinking about that when I was
getting ready and so I brought you a present.’” She pulled out a new toothbrush
and handed it to Groman. “’I think you might need this,’” she said. The implication was that Groman was going to jail.
When they got to court the judge again ordered Groman to
answer the questions about the informant’s identity and any other exculpatory
evidence the FBI had about LaKeas Davis.
Groman again refused to answer but before he was sent to
jail it was agreed there would be a confidential—in camera—hearing in the judge’s
chambers. Away from the public courtroom Groman explained to the judge and the
attorneys the information the FBI had and the fact their informant had been
present for a Curry gang meeting on how to handle the murder investigation. He
also revealed the wiretap and the need to keep it secret for the sake of the
drug investigation which was being presented to a federal grand jury.
It was agreed that prosecutors in the LaKeas Davis case
would be allowed to question the FBI’s informant—by telephone from the FBI Detroit
office where, ironically, they could be sure the phones weren’t tapped. The
prosecutors would not be told the informant’s identity.
Rick Wershe doesn’t remember a lot about what happened
next. He recalls being driven one day to FBI headquarters in downtown Detroit and
taken to an office where he was put on a telephone and told to answers
questions about what he knew about the Damion Lucas case. The local case
prosecutors were on the other end of the line, in another office at the Detroit
FBI’s offices. Wershe’s identity was not revealed. At that time Wershe’s normal
manner of speech made it sound like he was a young black man even though he was white.
The charges against LaKeas Davis were dismissed. An
innocent man had spent several months in jail fighting for his life while
someone in authority in the Detroit Police Department kept the investigation
away from the real killers. The Damion Lucas murder never came back to court.
The police and prosecutors never pursued the tips that the Curry gang was
responsible for the murder.
“That case stuck in my craw because I knew we had
something going on here and it involved corruption within the police
department,” Groman says.
As the Curry drug investigation neared the point of a
federal grand jury indictment Groman was reassigned from the Detroit FBI drug
squad to the public corruption squad.
The unsolved Damion Lucas murder was always in the back
of his mind and several years later it was the catalyst for one of the biggest public
corruption cases the Detroit FBI ever had. It was a case that hinged on the
work of a Confidential Informant. That informant was Rick Wershe. More, a lot
more, about that case will be explored in a future blog post.
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