Richie Roberts

In 1970s New York, there was no bigger, more notorious drug dealer than Frank Lucas, who the ruled the streets of Newark and Harlem. Nefariously brilliant, Lucas was a drug lord and killer who smuggled some of the most potent heroin ever seen in America from Southeast Asia, utilizing caskets and body bags of deceased American soldiers returning from the Vietnam War.

Richie Roberts is the larger-than-life detective who ended Lucas’s reign and brought him to justice. Tough, determined and fearless, Roberts worked at grave personal risk to painstakingly put together the case that would earn Frank Lucas a sentence of 30 years to life in federal prison. Lucas returned the favor by putting out a $100,000 contract on Robert’s life. The contract was never carried out and Lucas became a government informant, earning him release after serving seven years. The information obtained from Lucas led to scores of convictions, including cases against corrupt police officers, and forged an unlikely friendship between the two former enemies.

The 2007 hit film “American Gangster,” starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, tells the story of Roberts’s pursuit of Lucas. The two served as creative consultants on the film, ensuring the story was accurately retold.

At the podium, Roberts captivates audiences with the spellbinding story of his pursuit and capture of Lucas. Drawing from his experiences, Roberts takes audiences on the wild and often harrowing trail of the American gangster. In a separate program, Roberts taps into his expertise in narcotics enforcement to delve deeply into the war on drugs. By asking difficult questions about past and current drug traffic, the penal system’s successes and failures, and the culture of drug use, Roberts invigorates the dialog on the nation’s drug problems and enforcement.

AT A GLANCE: Born in the Bronx, Roberts was raised by his grandparents until the age of 8, when he reunited with his parents and moved to Newark, NJ. After graduation from Weequahic High School, Roberts served in the United States Marine Corps. where he rose to the rank of sergeant and remained in the active reserves for 6 years.

A graduate of Rutgers University, Roberts worked as was a detective in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and specialized in investigating organized crime. Working undercover, he was responsible for hundreds of arrests of members of the Genovese, Lucchese, and Bruno crime families. The skills he gained infiltrating the Cosa Nostra would later prove invaluable in his pursuit of narcotics pushers like Frank Lucas.

Balancing his career and his legal ambitions, Roberts attended Seton Hall University’s evening law program and earned his J.D. in 1971. Upon graduation, he was appointed Assistant Prosecutor for Essex County, and was commissioned to be the director of the Essex County Bureau of Narcotics one year later. The Bureau was a federally funded strike force created to target major drug dealers – specifically to identify, arrest, and convict major heroin dealers. The integrated squad – made up of local law enforcement, D.E.A. and State Police, as well as Prosecutors and Sheriff’s Detectives – was responsible for thousands of arrests and convictions under Roberts’ leadership.

Since 1982, Roberts has been in private practice as a defense attorney working in both the state and federal courts. He opened up his own practice in 1985 where he remains active.