Release date set for Monday for Richard 'White Boy Rick' Wershe

(FOX 2) - After spending his entire adult life in prison, Richard Wershe, who's more commonly known as "White Boy Rick" will be a free man on Monday, July 20.

"He's going to come back to Michigan, this is going to be his home state. He has a very good support here. He has a lot of opportunities coming up but I'm not at liberty to divulge," Wershe's attorney Ralph Musilli told FOX 2.

Wershe, who turns 51 on Saturday, was incarcerated when he was 17 for moving eight kilos of cocaine. Wershe was already an FBI informant at age 14 and helped convict several Detroit drug kingpins. But he was arrested in 1987 with 9,000 grams (317 ounces) of cocaine and $30,000 cash. 

At the time of his sentencing in 1988, the drug crimes he committed carried a mandatory life sentence. He was 17 at the time. Since his imprisonment in 1988, Michigan repealed the lifer law for drug dealers. The U.S. Supreme Court also later ruled that life sentences for juveniles was not constitutional.

Despite that, Wershe remained in prison.

In 2017 he was released from prison in Michigan and was directly transferred to a correctional facility in Florida to serve time there for his role in a scheme to sell stolen cars while he was incarcerated in Michigan.

"He's been on work release. He's been in a halfway house for about six months and he's been clerking at a law office, the law office by a young woman lawyer down in Orlando that helped us with the commutation petition down in Florida," Musilli said. 

Despite serving more prison time than any other juvenile offender in Michigan history, Wershe's attorney says his client is optimistic about the future.

"He seems to be in a good place mentally," Musilli said. "He's a smart man, even though he's not well educated he's got some schooling while he was in prison and I think he's going to do fine."