New Charges Tie Barry to Drug Use Years Before Arrest : Narcotics: The second indictment could make the capital mayor’s expected defense of entrapment much harder to support.

District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry was indicted Thursday on six new drug charges alleging that he obtained, provided and used crack and cocaine with more than 10 people at more than 20 locations for nearly six years before his arrest last Jan. 18.

The new charges, all misdemeanors, appear designed to make his anticipated defense of entrapment difficult to support because they allege a lengthy pattern of cocaine abuse. But in an already politically charged atmosphere, the prosecutors run the risk of appearing to pile charges on the embattled black mayor in a black-majority community likely to be suspicious about the motivation behind the indictment.

Barry spent several weeks after his arrest in treatment facilities for what he said was alcohol and prescription drug abuse. He has not yet announced if he will seek reelection. His term ends this year.

U.S. Atty. Jay P. Stephens seemed intent on discouraging any suggestion that Barry was being unfairly singled out in announcing the federal grand jury’s new indictment. It includes the first indictment’s original three felony and five misdemeanor charges, ranging from perjury to cocaine possession.

If convicted on all 14 counts, Barry would face a maximum sentence of 26 years in prison and $1.85 million in fines.

Stephens said his office “is charged with the responsibility of fairly enforcing the criminal laws without regard to the position or status of the offender. In fulfilling this obligation, following Mr. Barry’s arrest this past January, this office expeditiously and thoroughly investigated new evidence of criminal conduct involving his illegal drug activity.”

Stephens described the investigation of public corruption and illegal narcotics activity that led to Thursday’s indictment as “on-going.” Sources familiar with the inquiry said this means additional charges involving city contracting could still be brought against the mayor but that they are not likely before June 4, when his trial is scheduled to begin.

Barry’s lawyer, R. Kenneth Mundy, did not respond to a call for comment.

Herbert O. Reid Sr., the city’s corporation counsel and a longtime Barry confidant, said the mayor reacted to the new charges “without undue concern.” Appearing at a senior citizen’s center not long after the grand jury issued the indictment to a federal magistrate, Barry said he had no comment.

His attorneys are expected to mount an entrapment defense that would focus on Barry’s Jan. 18 arrest at the Vista Hotel here after being invited there by a friend, Rasheeda Moore. He allegedly was videotaped by FBI agents while smoking crack in Moore’s room.

Barry’s defense also is expected to challenge the credibility of Charles Lewis, who was a friend of the mayor and a former city employee. In the only felony counts of his indictment, Barry is charged with giving three false statements under oath to a federal grand jury last year. At that time, Barry denied that he was aware Lewis was involved with drugs, that Lewis had given him cocaine and that he had given cocaine to Lewis.

The Barry investigation heated up after a Dec. 22, 1988, incident in which D.C. police went to the Ramada Inn in downtown Washington to investigate a maid’s complaint that Lewis had tried to give her cocaine. But the detectives stopped short of entering Lewis’ room when they learned that Barry was with Lewis and that led to the broadened investigation.

Subsequently, Lewis was arrested and convicted in the Virgin Islands on charges of selling crack to an undercover FBI agent. He was charged with lying to a federal grand jury and conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine.

Lewis then began to cooperate with the grand jury investigation of Barry, pleading guilty to two charges and drawing a 15-month prison sentence.

The charges in Thursday’s indictment allege that from the fall of 1984 until his arrest, Barry conspired with others to unlawfully possess cocaine and crack. It further charges he “repeatedly” acquired the illegal substances and provided them to more than 10 other co-conspirators.