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Marion Barry’s never-ending melodrama took another turn yesterday. Prosecutors asked a federal judge to send the former Washington mayor to jail for failing to file tax returns. Barry didn’t fail just once, mind you, but eight times in nine years. He was originally given three years probation for failing to file returns between 1999 and 2004. Then, when he failed to file again in 2005, prosecutors tried to get that probation revoked. But Judge Deborah Robinson ruled that prosecutors hadn’t proven Barry “willfully” failed to file.....

WRC: NBC4 confirmed Tuesday night that Barry is preparing to undergo surgery to receive a kidney transplant at Howard University Hospital.

D.C. Council member Marion Barry said last night that he has been undergoing dialysis and expects to have a kidney transplant, which has distracted him from filing a recent tax return. His failure to file a 2007 return has led prosecutors to urge a judge to revoke his probation for past tax offenses and send him to jail. Barry (D-Ward 8), a former D.C. mayor, said in an interview with WUSA-TV (Channel 9) that his health matters have been "consuming" and have dominated his thinking. He said there was "no excuse" for not filing the 2007 return, but "that's the...

D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) has again failed to file his tax returns. The former District mayor has not submitted federal or city tax forms for 2007 -- the second instance in which he has not filed required returns while on probation for tax offenses, said two sources familiar with the situation. Two years ago, federal prosecutors failed to convince a federal judge that Barry should be jailed for violating the terms of his probation, which was ordered in 2006, because he did not file 2005 tax returns. The probation expires in March. Barry declined last night to...

Ta-Nehisi Coates, reacting to Marc Fisher's column on Palin's "everywoman" appeal, makes a smart point: ------------------------ As Fisher points out in his column, this is an extension of this idea that expertise, intelligence, and considered opinion are overrated. I'd take it even further--this is about Rocky as God, and the limits of a culture-hero, who in his latest incarnation asked us to believe that a 60-year old man could go toe to toe with championship-caliber boxer. I don't want to lean to hard on this point, mostly because it bears an eerie resemblance to the way blacks supported Marion Barry...

These are actual quotes taken from Mayor Marion Barry, of Washington, D.C. "The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather." -- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC "I promise you a police car on every sidewalk." -- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC "If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate." -- M. Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC "First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl." -- M. Barry, Mayor...

HE WASHINGTON TIMES D.C. Council member Marion Barry's most serious legal problem remains unresolved, despite his acquittal in D.C. Superior Court on drunken-driving charges last week. The former four-term mayor is scheduled to appear Thursday in federal court in the District to argue why he should not be incarcerated for up to a year for failing to file taxes on time. According to recently filed pleadings, the U.S. Attorney's Office will rely on affidavits from two tax agents and Mr. Barry's own words to make its case the Ward 8 Democrat has been violating his parole. Mr. Barry is on...

So D.C. Council members are entertaining the novel idea of placing tollbooths at the city's entryways and sticking a hand in the pocket of those who opt to live in the suburbs because of lower taxes, affordable housing, safer neighborhoods and stronger public schools. This is a sign of resignation, of being unable to fix that which is broken, of appealing to those who might choose to live in the city if it were not so dysfunctional. Increasing the tax base with a significant bump in population would ease the budgetary gap that perpetually taunts the city's lawmakers. Or perhaps...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge rejected a request by prosecutors to send former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry to jail for violating his probation in a criminal tax case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson said Monday that it was up to the federal probation office — not prosecutors — to make the request. The probation office declined to comment on the case Tuesday. The U.S. attorney's office, which could appeal Robinson's decision, also declined comment. Barry, 71 and now on the District of Columbia Council, pleaded guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges for failing to file tax...

WASHINGTON - District residents have been the guinea pigs in a failed 30-year-old experiment in social engineering. Three decades of strict gun control laws have not made the capital city’s streets safer. On the contrary, since 1976, D.C.’s murder rate has increased 32 percent, and violent crimes committed during the first few weeks of 2007 by gun-wielding thugs are up a staggering 50 percent over the same period last year. None other than former Mayor Marion Barry, now representing Ward 8 on the D.C. Council, is waving the white flag of surrender by introducing legislation to provide potential victims a...

D.C. Council member Marion Barry yesterday withdrew his effort to override a mayoral veto of his bill prohibiting discrimination against residents with criminal records, saying new council members need to study the measure further. Mr. Barry wants to amend the Human Rights Act of 1977 to "prohibit employment, housing and educational discrimination based upon conviction record."

WASHINGTON -- Marion Barry said that he is talking to his lawyers and thinking about suing the D.C. government and the U.S. Park Police after he was stopped, arrested and then released this past Saturday. Barry said that he was driving to a holiday party around 4:30 p.m. Saturday when U.S. Park Police officers, who said that he was driving too slowly, stopped him. Barry said the officers asked him for his license and registration and then said that his license was suspended. Barry told NBC4 the suspension was a clerical mistake, and he accused the U.S. Park police...

WASHINGTON -- Marion Barry said that he is talking to his lawyers and thinking about suing the D.C. government and the U.S. Park Police after he was stopped, arrested and then released this past Saturday. Barry said that he was driving to a holiday party around 4:30 p.m. Saturday when U.S. Park Police officers, who said that he was driving too slowly, stopped him. Barry said the officers asked him for his license and registration and then said that his license was suspended.

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry, jailed in 1991 for cocaine use only to reclaim his office and prominence in city politics, avoided another prison term on Thursday when a judge sentenced him to three years probation for failure to pay taxes. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson ordered Barry, now a city council member, to repay up to $246,000 in back taxes, plus penalties, and to comply with drug treatment and counseling requirements imposed by the U.S. probation office. Barry, 70, partly blamed his tax and financial woes for a relapse into drugs last fall....

Former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry was sentenced to three years probation Thursday in connection with charges that he failed to file federal or local tax returns for 2000. Barry pleaded guilty last October under an agreement reached with federal prosecutors which required him to acknowledge his failure to file returns for the years 1999 through 2004. Barry, 70, completed his fourth term as mayor in early 1999. While Barry has said he's unsure how much money he earned during the time period in question, he did not challenge claims by federal prosecutors that his income topped $534,000 during...

Late one night in 1996, suspicious that Marion Barry was using drugs again, boxing promoter Rock Newman sat him down and told him that he should resign as D.C. mayor and focus on beating his addiction. Newman said Barry cried in his arms. He remembers Barry telling him: "I love you, man. I know I betrayed your friendship." Barry agreed to leave town for a while and take a second stab at treatment. But he wouldn't give up politics. "He felt if he wasn't the mayor, he wasn't nothing," Newman said. Newman is out of Barry's life now; he dropped...

D.C. Council member Marion Barry yesterday downplayed concerns about his health while citing legal advice in refusing to discuss whether he has tested positive for cocaine. "My spirits are high," the former mayor said upon his release from Howard University Hospital, where he received treatment for diabetes and hypertension. "God has blessed me with a good spirit and a good brain." Mr. Barry, Ward 8 Democrat, declined to comment on a report yesterday in The Washington Post that said he had tested positive for cocaine during a drug test after his guilty plea on federal tax charges in October. Mr....

D.C. Council member Marion Barry tested positive for cocaine use in the fall in a drug test ordered by a court after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, according to two sources familiar with Barry's case. -snip- Because he violated the terms of his release, Barry, 69, faces an increased risk of serving the maximum 18 months behind bars -- rather than probation -- for his failure to file tax returns for six years. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 8, but a federal judge could jail him or sanction him at any time.

Marion Barry, once described as "the worst mayor in the history of human civilization," got his comeuppance Jan. 2 when he was robbed at gunpoint by teenage thugs helping him carry his groceries. A former four-term mayor of Washington, D.C., Mr. Barry was on the city council in 1976 when the district enacted the toughest gun-control laws in the nation, requiring all firearms to be registered and all owners to be licensed, prohibiting the sale of new handguns, and barring people from bringing handguns into the district or transporting a handgun through the city. A year later, Mr. Barry was...

Washington, D.C. has a gun ban, and gun bans stop crime. That's the ruse the gun ban lobby and their cronies would have you believe. That's what Washington, D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry (D) would have you believe. But, in an ironic twist of fate, Barry's anti-gun premise has been challenged by circumstances involving none other than Barry himself. This week, the ex-mayor was the victim of a violent crime in "gun-free" Washington, D.C. He was robbed at gunpoint by two young men who entered his apartment, held a gun to his head, and robbed him of...