Companion Who Helped FBI in Barry Arrest Gives Testimony

A former model who cooperated with the FBI in the arrest of Mayor Marion Barry on a cocaine possession charge testified Tuesday before a federal grand jury considering further criminal charges.

Rasheeda Moore, 38, who law enforcement sources have said called Barry to the hotel room where he was arrested, appeared before the closed grand jury session for 2 1/2 hours. She entered and left the U.S. Courthouse under tight security.

Barry spent his first full day Tuesday at the Hanley-Hazelden Center, an in-patient substance abuse program at St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla. He entered the 28-day treatment center Monday for what his attorney said was an alcohol problem.

Reporters continued to camp outside the treatment center, and Barry, through his spokeswoman in Washington, issued a plea to be left alone.

“He asked the media to please back off the center for a while . . . to please allow him to get into his healing process in peace,” said aide Lurma Rackley, who talked to Barry by telephone.

Although her testimony was secret, Moore has previously told investigators that she and Barry had used cocaine on numerous occasions during a lengthy relationship, including a 1988 trip to the Virgin Islands, law enforcement sources say.

The mayor, in sworn grand jury testimony last year, denied allegations of drug use, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They said that Moore’s story corroborates statements by convicted drug dealer Charles Lewis.

Lewis, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison last Friday on drug charges, is also cooperating with the continuing federal investigation of Barry, which sources say involves allegations of perjury by the mayor.

In a letter hand-delivered to Barry’s office, the Washington Board of Trade urged Barry to make “an immediate announcement” that he would not seek reelection.

Ron Richardson, president of the local chapter of the Hotel Restaurant Workers union, said about 20 labor, business and community leaders will meet Thursday to discuss ways to get the Rev. Jesse Jackson into the race. But Jackson kept silent about his plans Tuesday.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, said Barry and Moore, now a Burbank resident, have been friends for years, and that the mayor often paid for her stay in various Washington hotels.

Moore was voted top model by a modeling trade association in 1975. She returned to Washington from New York a few years later. Moore, a mother of three, got into legal trouble and spent six months in 1985 in a federal prison in West Virginia for illegal use of a vehicle. She then moved to California.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens filed court papers opposing a request by Barry’s lawyers to suspend court-ordered weekly drug testing.