Lawyer for City Puts Barry at Drug Use Site

An attorney for the city government testified in Marion Barry’s drug and perjury trial Friday that he found the mayor slumped one night in a bathroom littered with drug paraphernalia.

“The smoke and the . . . smell . . . got stronger as the evening went on,” said James McWilliams, recalling a December, 1988, night he spent with Barry and key prosecution witness Charles Lewis at a Washington hotel room.

McWilliams, who is cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty to drug-related charges, backed up testimony by Lewis about the evening of alleged crack cocaine use by the mayor.

McWilliams said he went to Lewis’ room that night to discuss a job transfer with the mayor. But the bearded McWilliams said that, as he pressed his case, Barry just told him at one point, “You know, you look a lot like Santa Claus.”

McWilliams, a legal counsel for the city’s Department of Public Works, testified that he helped Lewis and Barry hide the alleged drug use from police investigators “because I was protecting Marion Barry.”

Barry, 54, is facing three felony charges of perjury, 10 misdemeanor charges of cocaine possession and one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess cocaine. He has pleaded not guilty.

Lewis, a convicted drug dealer, testified earlier this week that he had used drugs with Barry repeatedly between 1986 and 1988 and smoked crack cocaine with him on four occasions in Lewis’ Washington room, including Dec. 19, 1988.

McWilliams said that, when he arrived at Lewis’ room that night, Lewis first asked him for $40 to “go out and get some stuff,” McWilliams testified,

“I understood he was going to go out and get some drugs” with the money, McWilliams said. Lewis came back with a plastic bag “that had a white substance inside,” he said.

Barry, who McWilliams said arrived later, then went repeatedly with Lewis into the bathroom and kitchen. Smoke and “a strong unusual smell” from the bathroom grew as McWilliams watched football on television, he testified.

McWilliams, a former assistant attorney general in the Virgin Islands, said he tried to talk to Barry about the job transfer, but “I didn’t think I was getting through.”