Marion Barry, Washington`s embattled mayor, is expected to announce at midday Sunday that he is entering a drug-rehabilitation program as he tries to pull together his shattered life after an arrest on drug charges last week.
The mayor, according to political allies, will appear before a congregation of a church near his home to tell supporters and constituents that he is seeking help for his drug use. This would be the first admission by the mayor that he has had trouble with narcotics.
The mayor spent Saturday closeted at his home, being visited by a constant stream of political advisers, friends and lawyers.
Among his visitors was Jim Vance, a news anchor for WRC-TV in Washington, who several years ago underwent treatment for substance abuse. Vance told viewers Saturday night that the mayor had asked him about different kinds of drug-abuse programs and medical facilities as he tried to decide on what course of treatment to take.
A political adviser to the mayor, who requested anonymity, said Barry is going to withhold decisions on his political future and whether he should continue to serve in the office he has held for 11 years until he ”sorts out” his legal and health problems.
U.S. Atty. Jay Stephens, interviewed on a TV news program, said that his office does not normally offer plea bargains in narcotics offenses but that the government is open to discussions with the mayor and his lawyers as it seeks the ”best course . . . for the people of Washington and the law-enforcement process.”
The drama began for Barry when he arrived by limousine for a rendezvous Thursday night at the Vista International Hotel. He left his bodyguards in the lobby and headed for the seventh floor.
Barry knew that in Room 723 was a woman of his acquaintance named Rasheeda Moore, a former Washington model now living in California.
But Barry did not know that Moore, a ”cooperating witness” in the argot of law enforcement, had agreed to help the FBI in its pursuit of Barry in exchange for reconsideration of possible felony charges against her.
Those charges stem from an incident two years ago in which Moore, 38, allegedly smoked crack cocaine with Barry and a former District of Columbia employee named Charles Lewis in a hotel in the Virgin Islands.
Once inside the room in the Vista International, Moore introduced Barry to a young woman. According to a government affidavit and law-enforcement sources, there was a discussion about the availability of drugs. Then the second woman, who was an undercover FBI agent, left the room and returned with a small amount of crack cocaine.
Barry allegedly bought the crack for less than $100, then smoked it in Moore`s company. The government says the entire incident was videotaped.
Two hours after he arrived at the hotel, Barry was taken to the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building to be fingerprinted and booked, having been arrested on a narcotics charge.
The arrest of Barry, 53, has galvanized Washington. Tales of the elaborate and costly sting operation organized by the U.S. attorney`s office, the FBI and the Internal Affairs Division of the Metropolitan Police raced through a city that believed it could no longer be surprised by its mercurial mayor.
Local television stations offered wall-to-wall live coverage of events, radio reporters turned up people-in-the-street interviews all over town, and the Washington Times, a morning daily, rushed an extra onto the street with a 2 1/2-inch-high banner headline: ”BUSTED.”
Friday morning, Barry and his wife, Effi, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson and heard the charge: a single misdemeanor count of willful unlawful possession of a narcotic substance, crack cocaine.
Barry, who did not enter a plea during the 10-minute arraignment, faces up to 1 year in jail and a $100,000 fine. His lawyers say he will plead innocent. Free on personal recognizance, he was ordered to submit to weekly drug tests and to check in weekly with the court by telephone.
After meeting with political allies Friday, Barry turned over day-to-day city operations to Deputy Mayor Carol Thompson but declined to step aside. He did not discuss his political future.
Sunday was the day Barry was to announce his intention to seek a fourth term as mayor, and to confront the four Democrats pledged to challenge him in the September primary. A Washington TV station reported Saturday that the mayor will postpone making any public statements about his political future for at least 30 days.
The continuing furor around Barry`s mayoralty as well as the rising murder rate and the drug terror in Washington had put his political future in peril. And the arrival last year of Chicago transplant Jesse Jackson engendered speculation that the two-time presidential hopeful would try to establish his electoral credentials in Washington, at Barry`s expense.
Jackson affirmed he would never run against his old friend, but some political observers were bemused last summer when Jackson expressed concern about Barry`s health.
For his part, Barry disdained four local challengers, feigned disinterest in Jackson and seemed to revel in the ironic appellation often heard hereabouts: ”Mayor for Life.”
Reports of drug use dogged Barry throughout the 1980s, but law-enforcement officials never were able to make a case against him.
Men and women of Barry`s acquaintance have testified willingly and under legal duress about his alleged drug use. There have been unconfirmed reports of hospitalization for drug problems. And there was the night in December 1988 when police aborted an attempt to make an undercover drug buy from Lewis, the former city employee, when it was learned Barry was in the hotel room with Lewis.
It was Lewis` testimony about the crack-smoking incident in the Virgin Islands that led the FBI to Rasheeda Moore. Lewis told the FBI that he had smoked crack at a hotel there with Barry and Moore, the mayor`s traveling companion.
Investigators confronted Moore in California and, according to law-enforcement sources, she initially lied to the FBI about her role in the Virgin Islands incident. But she later agreed to cooperate in the Vista International sting.
Barry has long claimed that the investigations into his private affairs were politically and perhaps racially motivated.
Barry`s allies are bound to question why federal prosecutors would so avidly pursue the mayor for an alleged crime that would be unlikely to lead to charges against less prominent citizens.
Georgetown University law professor William Greenlaugh suggested Barry`s lawyers might consider arguing that the mayor is being treated differently because of his position.
”While a potential persecution factor does not exist as a legal argument,” Greenlaugh said, ”the seed could be planted in the jury`s mind.” To be sure, Barry has been unwavering in his protestations of innocence and relentless in pursuing the image of a man warring against drugs. The day before his arrest, he made an appearance at a local high school and lectured the students on the dangers of drug use.
