Marion Berry Loves Cocaine

I was born in DC. I went to Howard. I spent my summers in DC. I remember when my cousins and step-brothers and sisters got summer jobs because Marion Berry had created a wonderful work program for the little black girls and boys in the city. As a child, raised in segragated Chicago and in love with Harold Washington, having a black mayor was really important to me. I loved Marion Berry because being the mayor of DC was tough. There were tons of politics. Particularly in the Reagan years… but, Marion… you gotta pay your taxes. You can’t do cocaine. YOU can’t do cocaine. And I’ve also heard some more disturbing news about MJ today… but we’ll save that for later.

MARION BARRY TESTED POSITIVE FOR
COCAINE: Mandatory drug test last fall
came up dirty.

*Former Washington D.C. mayor Marion
Barry now faces an increased risk of serving
the maximum 18 months in jail for misdemeanor
tax charges after testing positive for cocaine
use during a mandatory drug test administered
last fall.
Barry, who was elected to the Ward 8
council seat in 2004, has since begun treatment
for drug use, sources tell the Washington Post,
but his dirty drug test violates the terms of his
release in the tax case. Instead of probation, the
politician now faces and 18-month bid during his
sentencing scheduled for Feb. 8.
Barry, interviewed Tuesday night in his Howard
University Hospital room, where he’s being treated
for hypertension, said he did not deny accounts
of his drug test and treatment but declined to
discuss his case.
“Write what you want to write,” he told a
Washington Post reporter. “That’s my official
quote. No more, no less.”
The tax case involves Barry’s failure to pay
most of his federal and D.C. income taxes for six
years after his fourth term as mayor ended in
January 1999. Prosecutors said he received more
than $530,000 in income over the next six years
but did not document most of it. Barry’s plea
agreement also calls for him to make
arrangements to resolve his tax debts.
Barry grabbed national headlines last week
after two young men who helped him carry groceries
to his Southeast apartment returned to rob him at
gunpoint. The suspects, who escaped with Barry’s
wallet containing more than $200 in cash, his driver’s
license and two credit cards, are still at large.
In 1990, during Barry’s third term as mayor, he
was videotaped smoking crack at the Vista Hotel
by federal agents.