Barry Snorted as He Preached, Jury Told : Court: The prosecution alleges the D.C. mayor ‘was snorting dope up his nose’ even as he warned against drugs. The defense claims entrapment.

Marion Barry “was snorting dope up his nose” while warning his constituents about the dangers of drugs, a federal prosecutor said today in opening arguments at the mayor’s trial.

The case against the mayor is “about deceit and deception designed to keep the police, the public and the government from discovering” the truth, Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Roberts said.

“The defendant . . . had been smoking crack . . . all over town for years,” the prosecutor said.

Barry’s lawyer, R. Kenneth Mundy, said the mayor was the victim of entrapment by the government in an FBI sting operation that led to his arrest Jan. 18 at a downtown hotel. Mundy said prosecution witnesses include “notorious drug dealers” who are not believable.

Mundy called those witnesses a “cast of characters” who have struck deals with the government so that they won’t be prosecuted or who have been allowed to plead guilty to only a few criminal charges.

Barry sat in the courtroom, wearing a red flower in his lapel and was accompanied by his wife, Effi, as the lawyers made their opening arguments. Asked on his way into the courtroom how he felt, Barry said, “Fine.”

Barry, 54, has pleaded innocent to criminal charges alleging that he possessed cocaine repeatedly over a five-year span and that he lied to a federal grand jury in 1989 about his alleged involvement with drugs.

The opening arguments were a prelude to what is expected to be a monthlong trial featuring a videotape the FBI made the night of Barry’s arrest.

The jurors will see “black and white video” of Barry “smoking crack . . . lighting with a cigarette lighter . . . just like this,” said the prosecutor, demonstrating for the jury. Roberts twice extended his arms, inhaled deeply, held his breath for several seconds and exhaled.

At that point, Barry, sitting at the defense table, wiped his forehead.

“The evidence will show entrapment” of Barry by the FBI at the Vista Hotel, said Mundy.

But Roberts told a different story. “You will learn that while preaching about” not using “dope, he was snorting dope up his nose,” Roberts said of Barry, the District of Columbia’s mayor since 1979.

The prosecution will bring a series of friends and acquaintances to the witness stand to testify about Barry’s drug use, Roberts said.

But Mundy quickly attacked the credibility of defense witnesses. He said Charles Lewis, a key government witness against Barry, has pleaded guilty to drug charges and agreed to play “any tune the government wanted him to.”

Barry’s lawyer characterized Lewis as one of the “notorious drug dealers” who will testify in the case.

Roberts said that Barry’s friends and acquaintances “kept him supplied with drugs” over a five-year span and that “they conspired with him to keep ... his secret.”