Barry Pleads Innocent to Cocaine Use, Perjury : Drugs: His defense lawyer says the mayor will not resign or plea-bargain. The U.S. attorney says a variety of other allegations are being investigated.

Mayor Marion Barry emerged Wednesday from five weeks of seclusion to plead not guilty to eight federal drug and perjury charges, then quickly returned to an exclusive South Carolina treatment center to further “heal himself” of alcoholism.

Immaculate in a wine-and-white tie and matching pocket handkerchief, the 53-year-old mayor sat silently during the five-minute proceeding, rubbing his hands together slowly as U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered that his trial begin June 4.

Barry made no public comments during his return to the city he has headed for nearly a dozen years. It was the first time he had set foot in Washington since shortly after federal agents videotaped him allegedly smoking crack cocaine with a former girlfriend in a downtown hotel room.

The Jan. 18 arrest, and a later grand jury indictment charging that the mayor had used cocaine on another occasion and then lied about it under oath, set in motion a legal battle that has inflamed racial tensions in the capital.

Defense attorney R. Kenneth Mundy declared after Wednesday’s hearing that Barry would neither resign nor negotiate a plea bargain and said the mayor was confident that he would be vindicated when his case came before a jury.

But U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens dismissed the defense strategy as “standard not-guilty pleas” and said the federal government was continuing to investigate “a variety of related allegations” against the mayor.

The Justice Department last week subpoenaed the financial records of several close Barry associates, and sources said the probe is now focused on reports that the mayor steered city contracts to the associates in exchange for cocaine.

The arraignment provided Barry with his first chance to respond formally to the Feb. 15 indictment, which contained five misdemeanor counts of cocaine possession and three felony counts of perjury. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years and $1.25 million in fines.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights and the scrutiny of a packed courtroom, the mayor bowed his head and squinted as he read a copy of the charges. But he did not appear greatly troubled by them.

Outside, the courthouse grounds were jammed with reporters and vocal supporters and opponents of the mayor. About 20 members of the crime-fighting group Guardian Angels carried signs urging Barry to resign.

Barry held up two fingers in a victory sign as he entered the courtroom and later grinned broadly as he exchanged a word with Mundy.

The mayor looked on impassively as his lawyer entered pleas of not guilty “on each and every count.”

The court appearance followed the postponement of a Feb. 21 hearing that was put off at the mayor’s request on grounds that a return to Washington at that time would have interrupted his four-week rehabilitation program at a Florida alcohol and drug treatment facility.

Barry, who has denied using drugs and has said he is being treated for alcoholism, has since moved to the Fenwick Hall Clinic near Charleston, S.C.

The judge ordered Wednesday that Barry be released on his own recognizance, and he lifted a previous requirement that the mayor submit periodic urine samples for drug tests.

Stephens said he accepted the judge’s decision on the end of the mandatory drug testing as “appropriate” in light of the time that had passed since the mayor’s arrest.

Associates of Barry said the mayor returned to South Carolina after the arraignment to resume treatment, but his official spokesmen refused to comment on his movements.

Mundy said Barry would remain in touch with city officials during his time in the South Carolina treatment center, but he asked reporters not to disturb him because “the mayor is seeking to heal himself.”

“As he continues to mend himself physically and spiritually, he will adhere to the program that has been set aside for this treatment,” Mundy said.

The bulk of the charges against Barry stem from a December, 1988, incident in which he is alleged to have smoked crack cocaine in a Ramada Inn hotel room with Charles Lewis, a convicted drug dealer.

Lewis, whom the mayor has described as a friend, has said under oath that he provided crack to Barry and smoked the drug with the mayor more than once. The perjury charges against Barry stem from his sworn denials, in grand jury testimony, that he used drugs with Lewis.

The indictment of the mayor followed a costly yearlong Justice Department investigation of his conduct, prompting Barry to charge that he had been unfairly targeted by Republican administrations and had become the target of a “political lynching.”

His supporters noted that the mayor was arrested only after being lured to a Justice Department trap in the Vista Hotel, where undercover agents videotaped a reunion between Barry and a former girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore.

Barry has not yet announced whether he will seek reelection this year to an unprecedented fourth term, and his associates said Wednesday that they expected him to put any such decision on hold for at least another month.

A recent Washington Post poll reported that seven out of 10 Democrats in the city do not want Barry to seek a fourth term, and half say he should resign immediately.

But the poll showed that about one in four Democratic voters in the district remained hard-core Barry supporters.