Barry Guilty on One Count; Mistrial on 12 : Drugs: The jury deadlocks on felony charges. The Washington mayor could get a year’s sentence for possessing cocaine, but it is unlikely.

In a stunning defeat for federal prosecutors, a jury Friday convicted Mayor Marion Barry of only one of 14 drug-related charges, a misdemeanor drug possession. It cleared him of a second drug charge but failed to reach a verdict on 12 other counts, including three felony charges of lying to a grand jury.

Barry, 54, who looked quizzical when the verdicts were reported by jury foreman Edward Eagles, broke into a broad grin after jurors were excused from the courtroom. He mopped tears of relief from both eyes with a folded handkerchief, shook hands with R. Kenneth Mundy, his defense counsel, and hugged aides who rushed to his side.

Although the mayor had no immediate comment afterward, his relief stemmed from the fact that he had escaped conviction, at least for the time being, on most of the drug charges and especially the perjury counts, which were the only charges in his 14-count indictment that would have mandated a prison sentence.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, after receiving the partial verdict, asked jurors to return to the jury room to decide whether additional time would enable them to resolve the other 12 charges against the three-term mayor.

Several minutes later, when the jury replied in the negative, Jackson announced that “no further deliberations will result in a verdict.” He thanked jurors for their seven weeks of attention to the testimony and eight days of deliberations.

Then, declaring a mistrial on the 12 unresolved charges, the judge said he would hold a hearing Sept. 17 on whether Barry should receive a new trial on those counts, which include nine misdemeanor drug possession charges as well as the perjury counts.

Eagles, the foreman, told reporters later at his house: “I’m not prepared to tell you what the votes were. We got the verdicts we could. On the others, we struggled. . . . We couldn’t come up with a consensus.”

Asked if there were angry conflicts among the jurors, the high school history teacher replied, “No anger, just differences over issues.”

Was he disappointed that so many charges had been left unresolved?

“I think there are times when not everything is necessary to be decided,” he replied.

U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens, who was present in court, declined to say whether he would seek another trial on the 12 charges the jury could not agree on.

“We won’t have a decision right away,” Stephens said later outside the courthouse. “We would like to review the evidence. . . . I do think it was important that this case was tried.”

Stephens added that in convicting the mayor of one count of drug possession, the jury “has held Mr. Barry responsible for his criminal conduct.”

For his conviction, Barry faces a maximum possible punishment of one year imprisonment and a fine of $100,000. But legal experts said it was unlikely he would be jailed for a misdemeanor conviction.

One count left undecided by the jury was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case. It involved a drug possession charge based on an FBI sting operation last January in which the mayor was photographed by a hidden camera smoking crack cocaine in a downtown hotel room with a former girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore, who was cooperating with the government.

A crowd of 75 to 100 Barry supporters danced and cheered in front of the U.S. Courthouse after hearing news of the verdicts. Barry declined to address the crowd but planned to hold a news conference today.

“He is relieved, obviously, and this is his 202nd day chemical free,” said Press Secretary Lurma Rackley, referring to Barry’s decision last January to spend seven weeks at substance-abuse centers in Florida and South Carolina for what he said was alcohol addiction.

His decision to enter these centers followed his arrest in the FBI sting operation.

The trial of the black chief executive had transfixed the capital all summer and strained normally placid race relations in this 70% black city.

From the beginning, Barry, a Democrat, had pictured himself as a victim of the white Republican federal Establishment, embodied in Stephens and his FBI agents, and claimed he had been singled out for prosecution. The jury, composed of 10 blacks and two whites, seemed to have been divided on the case throughout their deliberations.

Jurors told Judge Jackson earlier this week that they had reached agreement on only one count but then declined to disclose what it was. On Friday, they sent the judge another note asking what to do if they were unable to agree on any charges.

It was then that Jackson decided to have them report what they had decided upon.

The count on which jurors convicted Barry was considered one of the strongest the prosecution had. It was based on the testimony of Doris Crenshaw, a Democratic Party worker and friend of the mayor, who said she had used cocaine with Barry during a trip she made to Washington in the fall of 1989.

Besides Crenshaw, prosecutors put on nine other former friends or associates of Barry’s who said they had supplied the mayor with drugs dating back to 1984 and had witnessed his cocaine habit over several years. But defense attorneys attacked the witnesses as “lying Lucifers” who were seeking to gain leniency from the government for their own offenses, and claimed their testimony was weak on precise dates and locations.

Barry was acquitted on a count accusing him of possessing cocaine on Sept. 7, 1988, at a city office building where convicted drug dealer Lydia Pearson said she delivered a bag of cocaine to him about 10 a.m.

The defense claimed Barry was addressing a meeting of city fire officials all that morning.

Barry never took the witness stand in his own defense. In his closing argument, Mundy conceded that the mayor “occasionally” had used cocaine in the past but that the prosecution had failed to prove any specifics.

Barry announced during selection of his jury in June that he would not seek an unprecedented fourth term as mayor. More recently, however, he has been considering seeking an at-large seat on the City Council.

Legal experts who followed the case predicted that prosecutors will not retry the charges against Barry unless it is shown that all but one or two of the 12 jurors favored a conviction.

“I doubt there will be a next time,” said Washington attorney Abbe Lowell. “The odds now favor the defendant over the government.”

A plea bargain on the remaining charges is also unlikely, they said.

“Jay Stephens doesn’t have much to trade on now,” said Georgetown University law professor Paul Rothstein.

Gerald M. Caplan, a professor of criminal law at George Washington University Law School and a former prosecutor said:

“Everybody was surprised that the city was so racially polarized over the trial. That was the one big surprise. On the whole, the black community focused on the government conduct, and the white community on the whole focused on the mayor’s conduct. That strained relationships that had been forged over a period of years.”

Contributing to this story were staff writers Stanley Meisler, David G. Savage, Ronald J. Ostrow and Maura Reynolds.