Grand Jury Will Be Asked to Indict D.C.’s Mayor on Felony Charges

A grand jury investigating allegations of drug use by District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry will be asked to return a multi-count felony indictment this week, perhaps as early as Thursday, according to sources close to the investigation.

Although the sources would not say precisely what charges would be sought in the indictment, they and others familiar with the case have said that authorities were seeking to determine whether Barry committed perjury when he told the grand jury last year that he had not used illegal drugs.

In addition, sources have said the grand jury is investigating allegations that Barry conspired to distribute and possess drugs, including cocaine, and that he attempted to obstruct justice by discouraging a witness, D.C. employee James D. McWilliams, from testifying to the grand jury about those allegations.

An indictment, the legal term for a formal list of criminal charges by a grand jury, would further cloud the political prospects of Barry, the three-term mayor who was arrested on a drug charge Jan. 18 during a federal sting operation at the Vista International Hotel. R. Kenneth Mundy, Barry’s attorney, has said that if the mayor is confronted by felony charges, it would be virtually impossible for him to campaign for reelection.

Meanwhile, U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens asked a federal magistrate Monday to order Barry to comply with a previous judicial order that he provide weekly urine specimens to test for the presence of drugs in his system.

Barry entered a treatment program at the Hanley-Hazelden Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 22 and has provided no specimens since then, according to a motion filed Monday by Stephens’s office.

The motion said that officials in the government’s Pre-Trial Services Agency had been barred by the Florida center from collecting urine samples from Barry. Stephens’s office also said that, contrary to an earlier assertion by Mundy, the center does not test its patients for drugs.