FBI Videotape Shows Barry Smoking Crack

Federal officials today released a videotape showing Mayor Marion Barry smoking a substance alleged to be crack cocaine the night of his arrest in an FBI sting operation.

The tape was released at the U.S. District Courthouse at the same time it was to be shown to jurors in Barry’s drug and perjury trial.

FBI cameras hidden in a downtown hotel room recorded Barry’s visit to the room of a longtime friend, Rasheeda Moore, on Jan. 18.

The fuzzy tape shows Barry inhaling twice from a pipe, and a few moments later, FBI agents bursting into the room and telling him he was under arrest.

“I didn’t do anything,” Barry said, uttering a string of expletives in Moore’s direction. “I’ve been set up.”

The tape shows Barry initially expressed reluctance to inhale unless Moore did so first--a potentially important development in view of his defense claims that he was the victim of government entrapment.

Barry looked at the substance and then said, “I don’t know.”

Moore: “You do it.”

Barry: “No.”

At one point Barry said “How does this work?” and Moore responded, “What?”

A few moments later, he inhaled and then appeared momentarily wobbly.

Moore, who was cooperating with the government sting, asked if he was all right.

The tape was aired after a morning of testimony by Moore about the events of the night.

Moore said the mayor was “uncomfortable” with visiting her in her room.

“There are too many nosy rosies around,” Barry complained in a phone call to Moore shortly before his arrival. That call and others were recorded by agents and played for the jury today.

Moore testified that she was surprised when Barry said he did not know how to use the crack pipe that she gave him after he arrived in the room.

“What do you mean? You’ve used that a lot,” Moore said she told Barry. Barry’s attorney has portrayed the mayor as a reluctant, inexperienced drug user in recounting Barry’s version of the night.