Friend Tells of Barry Drug Use at ’87 L.A. Party
Marion Barry used drugs and drank heavily before collapsing at a 1987 Super Bowl party in Los Angeles, a friend testified Thursday at the mayor’s cocaine and perjury trial.
Jeffrey Mitchell said that Barry, who is the mayor of the District of Columbia, was rushed to the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood and given oxygen but then “said he didn’t want any tests” and walked out.
The two men used cocaine on at least 10 occasions from 1985 to 1987, testified Mitchell, an advertising executive who has worked on Barry’s mayoral campaigns.
In major areas, his testimony supported that of another Barry friend, who told the jury on Wednesday of a conversation with Mitchell about the Super Bowl episode. But the two witnesses disagreed on several points, including whose idea it was to steer clear of tests at the hospital.
The official explanation given at the time for Barry’s collapse was that he had suffered a hiatal hernia.
Another witness Thursday, Darrell Sabbs, said that he and the mayor snorted cocaine together on four occasions between 1986 and last September.
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