Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Nicky Barnes, a Harlem folk hero...
That name was once as notorious as any in New York City and beyond. He had headed a lucrative and lethal drug-dealing enterprise that seemed impregnable, thanks to lost evidence, lapsed memories, and missing witnesses.
His record of avoiding conviction inflated his ego, to the point wherein 1977 this dashing dope peddler flaunted his supposed invulnerability by posing — recklessly, as it turned out — in a blue denim suit and a red, white, and blue tie for the cover of The New York Times Magazine.
“The Police Say He May Be Harlem’s Biggest Drug Dealer. But Can They Prove It?”
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/06/05/140072482.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=LedeAsset®ion=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=367
The cover so affronted President Jimmy Carter that the White House ordered Mr. Barnes, who had been indicted again only weeks before, to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Justice Department did just that. And later in 1977, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
While Barnes was behind bars he felt betrayed...so he exacted his revenge: He testified against them in federal trials, and scores of his wayward former associates were convicted. One was his ex-wife, Thelma Grant, who pleaded guilty to federal drug charges and served 10 years in prison.
In return for his cooperation, the government released Mr. Barnes from prison in 1998. But concluding that he would henceforth be a marked man, the authorities offered him something more: a new life, though a hidden one, in the witness protection program.
Nicky Barnes, a Harlem folk hero...
That name was once as notorious as any in New York City and beyond. He had headed a lucrative and lethal drug-dealing enterprise that seemed impregnable, thanks to lost evidence, lapsed memories, and missing witnesses.
His record of avoiding conviction inflated his ego, to the point wherein 1977 this dashing dope peddler flaunted his supposed invulnerability by posing — recklessly, as it turned out — in a blue denim suit and a red, white, and blue tie for the cover of The New York Times Magazine.
“The Police Say He May Be Harlem’s Biggest Drug Dealer. But Can They Prove It?”
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/06/05/140072482.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=LedeAsset®ion=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=367
The cover so affronted President Jimmy Carter that the White House ordered Mr. Barnes, who had been indicted again only weeks before, to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Justice Department did just that. And later in 1977, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
While Barnes was behind bars he felt betrayed...so he exacted his revenge: He testified against them in federal trials, and scores of his wayward former associates were convicted. One was his ex-wife, Thelma Grant, who pleaded guilty to federal drug charges and served 10 years in prison.
In return for his cooperation, the government released Mr. Barnes from prison in 1998. But concluding that he would henceforth be a marked man, the authorities offered him something more: a new life, though a hidden one, in the witness protection program.
