*Harlem drug kingpin Leroy (Nicky) Barnes says his role in New York's heroin trade during the late 60s and early 70s is grossly underrepresented in the new film "American Gangster," which details the rise and fall of his drug rival Frank Lucas.

"This whole thing about him being an entrepreneurial genius is nonsense," Barnes told the New York Daily News from his undisclosed location in the federal witness protection program. "I didn't see it. I did business in all five boroughs, Atlanta, D.C., Philly and Baltimore. Frank had 116th St. and maybe a few places in New Jersey."

In the Universal Pictures film, Denzel Washington portrays Lucas as a likeable family man but ruthless killer who dealt heroin by shipping the substance in the coffins of dead soldiers coming home from Vietnam. The movie features Barnes briefly as a "loud-mouthed buffoon" played by actor Cuba Gooding Jr.

Barnes tells the newspaper: "I like Cuba Gooding Jr. He probably did the best he could. But they depict me as a footnote in Frank's life when it was the other way around.

Barnes also disputes Washington's characterization of Lucas as articulate and understated, in contrast to Gooding's pimped-out dimwit.       

"I wore flashy clothes, but not outrageous," says Barnes. "Check out the photos of me at the time. And have you listened to Frank talk? Frank is functionally illiterate. I've read all of Shakespeare. I can quote his sonnets. I read Dickens, Melville, Emily Dickinson. I won a poetry contest against inmates from the entire prison system.      

       "I did things Frank is incapable of. They took attributes of me and gave them to Frank. He was an empty vessel."      

       "They said I approached Frank for his dope," says Barnes. "I always got my drugs from the Italians. They have this scene where Frank yells at me for using the name of his dope - 'Blue Magic.' It never happened!       

       "This business about him being the protege of Bumpy Johnson - I never heard anything about Frank and Bumpy.      

       "Frank never went to Southeast Asia to get Ike Atkinson to bring him to a general in the Golden Triangle. Ike told me he won a bag of dope from some guys in a card game and unloaded it on Frank. His dope never came in the coffins of G.I.s from Vietnam. Check the public record.      

       "They're showing Frank as credible by undermining me. It's mythology. They portray Frank as their strident Afro-centric guy standing up to the white mobsters. Did you see Frank on Charlie Rose's show? He was the only one saying, 'Mister Rose.' He was like a lawn jockey."

 In its defense, Universal says the studio "has every confidence that the material facts are conveyed truthfully in 'American Gangster,' from abundant research with direct sources and from the public record."      

       Barnes, meanwhile, is featured in a documentary currently in theaters, titled "Mr. Untouchable."

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