Telling Tales

Mad, mad Leroy Barnes

Even the judge was shocked. After listening to hours of testimony about a multimillion-dollar drug-distribution network involving hired killers with a penchant for chain saws, U.S. District Judge Milton Pollack marveled that such iniquities "could be so coldbloodedly related." Yet the tales so coolly told in court helped indict 44 major traffickers and convict 16. The man doing the talking was Leroy ("Nicky") Barnes, a.k.a. "Mr. Untouchable." Barnes fingered Frank James, his ex-partner in drug dealing, for ordering his brother-in-law ice-picked to death. James, said Barnes, employed a four-man hit team; one aspiring killer slew a random passer-by as an audition for the job.

Barnes, 51, won his notoriety when, as the most flamboyant member of a Mafia-style council of seven "blood brothers," he earned millions distributing heroin throughout Harlem. In 1977 he was finally nailed, and the sentence was stiff: life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Six years later, Mr. Untouchable turned into Mr. Tell All.

Even though Barnes claimed last year that he would seek Executive clemency and adopted a repentant tone ("My whole life was shallow"), such meekness will probably go for naught. Barnes volunteered to talk for no more than the assurance that his cooperation would be brought to the attention of the Government. U.S. prosecutors, who last week produced a 19-page memo detailing Barnes' cooperation, insist that the one man who has the power to grant clemency, the President, is hardly likely to give even as much as a chance for parole. Asks Assistant U.S. Attor-Tney Philip Douglas: "What President wants to go on record as 1 having reduced the sentence of Nicky Barnes?"

Barnes' lust for vengeance is a more credible explanation, especially since he had to implicate himself in eight murders in order to explain what his former friends did. Prosecutors believe that after switching prisons in 1981, Barnes began getting more news from the outside world, and he did not like what he heard.

He came to believe that his lawyers were swindling him, his former blood brothers had cut into his turf, and one had started an affair with Barnes' favorite mistress.

Testified Barnes: "I have no way to reach to get to 'em, and I want to get back at 'em. That's my primary reason." If revenge is indeed his reward, then his long life behind bars may be a bit sweeter: he has made it certain that his blood brothers will share his prison life.