Drug Use by Witness for Barry Alleged

Attorneys for Mayor Marion Barry opened their defense of his drug and perjury charges Thursday but immediately hit a snag when prosecutors raised allegations of drug use against their first witness, a member of Barry’s security detail.

The security officer, District of Columbia Police Sgt. James L. Stays, was called by defense attorney R. Kenneth Mundy to testify that he never had seen any drugs being used during Barry’s 1988 visit to the Virgin Islands, contrary to the testimony of confessed drug dealer Charles Lewis.

But with jurors excused from the courtroom, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that “there is evidence” Stays, a 30-year member of the police force, had been a cocaine user and that he had refused a urine test. Associate prosecutor Judith Retchin also said that Stays had confided to another officer the name of a man he said supplied drugs to Barry.

After a long recess, during which Jackson permitted Stays to consult a lawyer, Retchin asked him in front of the jury if he had once pointed out a longtime Barry friend as a drug supplier.

Stays replied: “Me? No.”

Stays also answered, “No,” when Retchin asked if he ever had used drugs at a private home. Jackson refused to permit further questioning on the point.

Outside the courthouse, Barry accused prosecutors of “satanic, dirt-like tactics.”

Stays is a member of an elite, 24-member security force that protects Barry locally and on all of his trips. All are full-time members of the D.C. Police Department.

In his direct testimony, Stays said that he was in the Virgin Islands during half of the mayor’s four-day visit there in March, 1988, and never saw any drug use. Lewis, a former friend of Barry who was the government’s first witness last month, had told jurors that he and Barry had sniffed cocaine in Barry’s hotel room there and also aboard a boat.

On cross-examination by Retchin, Stays acknowledged that he was not in the mayor’s presence during much of the Virgin Islands trip. Prosecutors also elicited testimony from Stays that he had driven Barry several times to the homes of Doris Crenshaw, Jeff Mitchell and Lloyd Moore, all of whom testified that they used cocaine repeatedly with the mayor in their homes and other places.

Barry is charged with one count of drug conspiracy, 10 counts of drug possession and three counts of perjury on grounds that he lied to grand jurors last year in specifically denying drug use with Lewis.