Paul Bergrin Case: Racketeering trial begins for New Jersey defense attorney

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

May 8, 2009 file photo of attorney Paul Bergrin in Superior Court in Newark, NJ

Attorney Paul Bergrin is seen in Superior Court in Newark, N.J. on May 8, 2009

/ File, AP Photo/Mike Derer

(CBS/AP) NEWARK, N.J. - A racketeering trial began Tuesday for Paul Bergrin, a once-prominent New Jersey defense attorney whose clients once numbered rap stars and other entertainers.

Bergrin faces a 26-count indictment that charges him with running his law firm as a racketeering enterprise. He allegedly engaged in drug trafficking, prostitution, bribery, witness tampering and plotting to murder witnesses.

The defense attorney previously went through a murder trial that ended in a hung jury on November 2009. The judge in that trial was removed by a federal appeals court after prosecutors argued his rulings showed bias.

Bergrin has been behind bars since his arrest in 2009, and several others arrested with him have pleaded guilty. He's acting as his own attorney during the trial.

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May 21, 2009 - Former Federal Prosecutor and Lawyer To Stars Charged With Murder

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"Rick Wershe, better known to the public as "White Boy Rick", is currently serving a life prison sentence in the Michigan Department of Corrections for a single drug possession conviction from January 1988. When he was arrested he was only 17 years old. Newly uncovered evidence proves he was led into the life of being a teenage drug dealer by the federal government. Rick was recruited by a narcotics task force made up by the FBI, DEA, and several Detroit Police Department detectives in 1984 as a 14 year old juvenile, encouraged to drop out of high school and eventually put to work as a paid undercover operative in some of the state's most dangerous criminal organizations for the next three years.
Following his conviction, he was sentenced under Michigan's ultra-tough "650-Lifer Law", a law erased from the books in 1998, allowing him to be eligible for parole.In the three times before the parole board in the last decade, he's been rejected every time. As of 2012, he was the only minor sentenced under that law in the whole Michigan prison system that remains behind bars. He is also the only person in the country convicted as a minor for a non violent crime facing the prospect of serving a life sentence.
In the 25 years Rick has been incarcerated, he has cooperated with law enforcement extensively. Prosecutors have said that without his help, the largest police corruption case in Detroit's history would not have been possible. Some of the people ending up being convicted included members of Coleman Young's family.
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Once a boy who made a mistake, Rick is now simply a man in his mid-40's in search of a second chance."; Reply to this comment