Gangsta Rap: Richie Roberts on 'American Gangster'

RICHIE ROBERTS SAYS he never thought Hollywood would make a movie out of his life.

Not even when as a New Jersey policeman he found a large sum of unmarked bills and turned it in. Not when, as part of the Essex County prosecutor's office, he helped bring down Frank Lucas, one of America's most powerful drug dealers, in the 1970s. And not when he later became friends with Lucas, became the godfather to Lucas' son, Ray, and paid for the child to go to Catholic school.

"I knew [my life] was crazy," Roberts says. "I wanted it to be crazy. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush. I enjoyed being on the edge. I always did. But I never for a second pictured anything about a movie."

And even since Ridley Scott's film "American Gangster" — where former cop is portrayed by Academy Award winner Russell Crowe — has grossed well more than $100 million and is now out on DVD, Roberts says his life hasn't changed much at all.

Roberts is still a practicing lawyer, although he's been a defense attorney for a couple decades now. He still sees Ray Lucas every week, even when his relationship with Ray's father turns sour, as it sometimes does. "Since the movie started, he kind of morphed back into Frank Lucas the drug lord," Roberts says. "And I got that old narc feeling and I thought to myself, 'I should have put this guy away for good.' "

And Roberts still thinks of Lucas as a drug dealer, no matter how close he gets to Ray. He says this criminal is not a man to be glorified — which is a tough to avoid when someone as charismatic as Denzel Washington portrays the gangster on film — because, Roberts argues, Frank Lucas killed more black people with his drugs than the KKK ever did.

For years, Roberts has given talks that cover why there will likely never be another drug dealer as powerful as Lucas, his relationship with the criminal kingpin, the drug game in the 1970s, his fear of public speaking and his Jewish background. On Monday night, Roberts will be at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue to talk about some of those topics — but Express got to him first.

» EXPRESS: How did you end up becoming friends with Frank Lucas?
» ROBERTS: There's kind of an easy answer, believe it or not. When you flip a defendant, he starts working with you and an entirely new relationship is established. They become cops. They really want to get he job done and you establish a relationship, and sometimes these relationships last years and you become friendly. And in Frank's case, we worked closely for years, not only making cases but then on the movie.

And in spite of the fact — and I don't want anybody to ever think anything other than what I am saying now — in spite of the fact that he is or was a stone killer and destroyed tens of thousands of lives, believe it or not, when you sit down and talk with him, he can be a very charming guy. And he had a young kid who I fell in love with and took under my wing and that's how we became friendly.

» EXPRESS: How has Frank Lucas changed?
» ROBERTS: Before the making of the movie, he would come up and regale people with stories and laugh and he'd be very humble. But when they started the movie, he changed into Frank Lucas the drug lord again. He started becoming very obnoxious, ordering people around. His family wanted to kill him and my secretary wanted to throw him out of the office every time he came in. And I — especially when they started shooting the scenes of the movie — started to get that old feeling of wanting to put these guys away forever. It's kind of an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurred.

» EXPRESS: How have you changed since the 1970s?
» ROBERTS: You know, I really haven't changed. I honestly haven't. I've been married three times. My personal life has never been the American dream kind of thing. I still enjoy the action. I'm a defense attorney now. I appreciate and love the friends that I have, but ask my friends and I think they'll tell you haven't changed.

» EXPRESS: Does Ray Lucas have any of his father in him?
» ROBERTS: No, and I was very worried about that. The first time the movie was shown to Frank was here in New Jersey, and I had seen it already. Ray was there, so I stopped Ray and I said, "Ray, have you heard anything about what this movie is going to be?" Ray said, "No, not really." Well, it's pretty violent and it shows his dad doing some pretty violent things. I said, "Ray, look, it's a movie. They're doing things to sensationalize things and your dad didn't really do a lot of what happened." It's very hard to tell — I'm not with Ray 24-7 — but he seems to have his head screwed on straight, and he's still getting straight A's in school. So, hopefully, he'll be OK. I just can't imagine how a kid would feel looking at that stuff.

» EXPRESS: Do you see the movie as glorification of gangsters — not just for Ray but for others?
» ROBERTS: That was a thorn in my side for the entire movie, and I fought with everybody in sight about that. I didn't care how they portrayed me — you have to sign away your life rights, and they want to make you a womanizer and certain things. That's fine. I didn't care. But don't glorify Frank Lucas. And I was afraid that Denzel was going to do it on two levels. One, Denzel is Denzel. He's a likeable guy. If he wants to turn on the charm, it's there and you're going to like Denzel. Secondly, I believe at the beginning he wanted to do that — he wanted to make a black "Godfather." And we had talks about it, and with Ridley Scott as well, and I said, "Look, the guy has probably killed more black people than the KKK ever dreamed of doing — this is not a guy to be glorifying." If you want to show a little piece of Americana, fine. But make it real. Don't make some 14-year-old kid growing up in Newark want to be Frank Lucas.

» EXPRESS: What did you think of Russell Crowe's portrayal?
» ROBERTS: Russell stuck to what the script wanted to show. I was a little crazier than he showed. There's a couple scenes where I wussed out on things. That never would have happened. That was nuts.

» EXPRESS: How so?
» ROBERTS: When the $20,000 went south and went to New York on a drug deal and I followed it in. First of all, that never would have happened. You never let any amount of money go without getting the drugs. Of course, I was an adviser and every time I advised them on something they said, "Sure," and then they went and did it another way. So that never would have happened. But something like that happened, and I did have to confront some New York cops and, frankly, we almost had a gun fight because I wasn't about to take any crap from anybody, especially if they were crooked cops and I had to get that money back — it was U.S. Attorney's money at the time. He played me there kind of weak, but that's the way he did it. How can I complain? Russell Crowe was playing me. But that's the only thing — and his choice of shirts was horrible.

» EXPRESS: In the movie they make a big deal about the fact that Frank Lucas didn't often wear chinchilla coats. But that's not true, right? He was a pretty flamboyant guy, right?
» ROBERTS: That's correct. That's Hollywood doing their thing. Frank probably now believes what the movie said, but we knew who Frank Lucas was. You can't build up those kinds of organizations without law enforcement knowing about it. That may have stuck a finger in the DEA's eye by doing that, but that wasn't the first time we knew Frank Lucas.

» EXPRESS: How does the drug game now compare to what it was like back then?
» ROBERTS: Back then, it seemed that somebody, or group, would rise to the top of the drug trade, whether it was Frank Lucas or Nicky Barnes or Frank Matthews. They were able to consolidate their power and really control their heroin. When we broke up — when I say we I mean various U.S. Attorney's offices in New York, Newark, Baltimore — we broke up those cartels and what's come up instead is in some ways, even worse. We're talking now about the Bloods, the Crips, the Latin Kings and the MS13s, where you have these even more brutal people out on the street selling dope. And you have now these gangs that are controlling it and the streets are bad. The streets may even be more unsafe than they were back then.

» EXPRESS: And you would say that's because no one has risen to the top?
» ROBERTS: There's no control. There are fights all the time — between different sects of the Bloods, between the Bloods and the Crips and between the Hispanic gangs. Who's going to control this street or that street. Law enforcement is a lot more sophisticated now. We have a lot more use of wiretaps and the RICO statues has done wonders to help stop the major organizations. So we seem to be able to stop it before it gets too big. But while they're at the level they're at, where they're fighting for turf and fighting for power, it gets really, really brutal. And the Bloods and the Crips have no social conscience whatsoever — I'm using that generic there; I'm talking about all the gangs now: They have no social conscience.

» EXPRESS: Would you say because these advancement in law enforcement, there probably will never be another Frank Lucas or Nicky Barnes?
» ROBERTS: My own personal opinion — which you'll probably get as many people saying the opposite — is no, I don't think there will ever be anybody that big. No one can get that big again. And don't forget, a lot of reason they got that big was because they had a lot of cops on the take. And I don't think that kind of thing could happen again either. I don't see it happening. Anything could happen, but I think we're too far ahead to let that go.

» EXPRESS: How were they able to get so many cops on the take?
» ROBERTS: It was different times. It was different times, and I hate to say it, but I think it was probably racist in part because the feeling is: "Hey, it's in the black neighborhoods. Let's just keep it in there; let them poison themselves and let's keep the white neighborhoods safe." I'm not saying everybody thought that way, but I know some people did. If I take a few thousand a week from a black dealer to let him keep selling dope to black people, what am I doing that's so bad? And that was the mentality of a lot of these cops.

» Sixth & I Synagogue, 600 I St. NW; Mon., 8 p.m., $18 for two tickets; 202-364-1919. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)

Photos courtesy Universal (Roberts with Russell Crowe), Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for Universal Pictures (Roberts with Brian Grazer) and Greater Talent Network (Roberts headshot)