Bad, Bad Leroy Barnes

The law finally touches "Mr. Untouchable"

His friends claimed he was just a wealthy real estate investor who was harassed by overzealous, even jealous white authorities. Police contended he was the biggest heroin dealer in New York City, maybe in the country. To blacks in his old Harlem neighborhood, Leroy ("Nicky") Barnes, 45, was a legend of defiance and success. What he had he flaunted, and he had a great deal: 300 custom-tailored suits, a string of glamourous women and powerful friends in show business and politics. He drove two Citroen-Maseratis and four Mercedes. Ghetto kids, said a black police detective, "think he's the greatest thing since Muhammad Ali," an idol to emulate. Prosecutors saw Barnes as a public menace to put in prison--and found it maddeningly difficult to get him headed there. Since 1973, Nicky Barnes had been arrested for homicide, bribery, drug dealing and possession of dangerous weapons. But none of the charges stuck. Impressed by his apparent ability to beat any rap, blacks called him "Mr. Untouchable."

An ex-junkie who neither smokes nor drinks and who cultivated the look of a conservative businessman, Barnes had shielded himself so carefully behind the layers of his organization that it was virtually impossible to trace drug sales back to him. None of his cars or his several homes and apartments are registered in his name. In 1973, after placing him under round-the-clock surveillance for eight months, local authorities managed to arrest him only on a weapons charge--but the charges were dismissed. On one occasion, Barnes playfully led his police tails on a wild-goose chase through Harlem, making 100 stops at grocery stores, bars and neighborhood social clubs.

Barnes ran a highly diversified operation. In addition to gas stations and travel agencies in the New York area, he held investments in two federally insured housing projects in Detroit and Cleveland. The use of respectable fronts and legitimate businesses is a time-honored Mafia ploy, and according to police, Barnes learned that trick and many others from the late Brooklyn mobster "Crazy Joey" Gallo when they were in prison together in 1965. (Barnes served five years on a narcotics conviction, which was overturned on appeal.)

Since then, Barnes, who is self-educated and a constitutional-law buff, managed to work his way up from just another Harlem pusher to the reputed Godfather of a multimillion-dollar drug empire. In the process, he is said to have established a close and profitable relationship with the Mob. Reported one black detective to TIME Correspondent John Tompkins: "We recently saw a guy from Mulberry Street [in Manhattan's Little Italy] meeting with Nicky Barnes at a place in The Bronx [on Barnes' turf]. A few years back, Nicky would have had to go downtown to see the Italian." Barnes' 44th birthday party in October 1976 was a tour de force of extravagant self-confidence. As police stakeouts looked on in amazement from across the street, more than 200 members of black organized crime rolled up in their Cadillacs and Rolls-Royces to a catered affair in a private club atop a midtown skyscraper. Also in attendance were dozens of relatives from around the country--and one white, his lawyer. Barnes' financial success is a matter of record--in theory. For 1975 he reported to the IRS that he had earned $288,750. Of that, $1,750 was "wages" and the rest was "miscellaneous income." He also claimed $453,000 in real estate losses as a tax shelter.

Last March, agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested Barnes. A federal grand jury had indicted him and five of his top "lieutenants" for conspiring to distribute 44 Ibs. of heroin (estimated wholesale price: $1 million) once a month, starting in November 1976, from Barnes' Harlem garage. New York cops, however, grumbled that the feds had rushed in too soon. Having painstakingly tailed and eavesdropped on Barnes for more than ten years, local narcs figured they were building a better case against him.

When the trial began in October, the Government's case was in trouble. Although prosecutors had assembled hundreds of reels of tape from court-ordered wiretaps and bugs, DEA investigators conceded in court that they had Barnes' voice on only one tape--and that did not involve a conversation about drugs. The defense denied the voice was Barnes' and put on the stand an undercover agent who admitted he now was not certain it was actually Nicky talking. Nor did any of the other tapes link Barnes to narcotics. Though the Government contended that on one reel a man said he had to "pick up a kilo out of Nicky's car," the sound was blurred. A defense audio expert testified that the word was payroll and not kilo. Moreover, kilo is not street slang. Savvy dealers talk about "the package" or "the thing."

But last week, after spending 18 hours deliberating on nine weeks of testimony, the jury of five blacks and seven whites found Nicky Barnes guilty. Mr. Untouchable finally got touched. A gasp rose from the courtroom, which was packed with Barnes' friends and relatives. Convicted along with Barnes were four of his "lieutenants" plus six members of a "lower echelon," all of them charged with conspiracy. It was they who actually negotiated bulk deals for their boss. Prosecutors said Barnes never handled the drugs himself. His defense attorney, David Breitbart, said he would challenge the prosecution's evidence once again and appeal verdict, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a minimum sentence of ten years. Meanwhile, Barnes, who was denied bail, will be in a federal prison, along with most of his convicted sidekicks.

With Barnes behind bars, New York police have already begun planning a special task force to investigate the drug racket in the city. In the past two months, while Barnes was on trial, there have been 18 drug-connected homicides in Harlem. To narcotics agents, that could mean only one thing: the battle for Nicky's lucrative turf has begun. qed

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