Smith Won’t Bargain in Belushi’s Drug Death

Cathy Evelyn Smith, charged with injecting comic actor John Belushi with a fatal overdose of drugs, rejected a plea bargain Monday that would have allowed her to plead guilty to a lesser charge.

Smith, 38, a Canadian citizen, appeared in Superior Court and rejected the plea bargain offered by the district attorney’s office. She is expected to plead innocent to the murder charge and 13 counts of administering heroin and cocaine to Belushi when she is arraigned later this week.

“I can’t in good conscience . . . make a recommendation that she enter a plea of guilty,” said Smith’s attorney, Howard Weitzman.

Prepared to Plead

When Smith voluntarily returned from Canada last month, she reportedly was prepared to plead guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

Smith agreed to return to Los Angeles after fighting extradition in Canada, and prosecutors said a deal had been struck with her Toronto attorney, Brian Greenspan, in which she was to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

But Weitzman, her Los Angeles attorney, argued on her return that Smith should not have been indicted on a murder charge and should serve no prison time. He said then that she might plead innocent and take the case to trial.

Weitzman said he would review the tapes as well as the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that indicted Smith in 1983 for Belushi’s murder before deciding how she would plead.

Belushi, 33, was found dead of a drug overdose in his bungalow at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in West Hollywood on March 5, 1982.

Copies of Interviews

Superior Court Judge Robert Devich ordered last week that copies of taped interviews with Smith by two National Enquirer reporters be turned over to Weitzman, who won acquittal for former auto maker John De Lorean in his cocaine trial.

An article in the tabloid in June, 1982, quoted Smith as saying: “I killed John Belushi. I didn’t mean to but I am responsible.”

Devich also planned to decide whether to unseal grand jury transcripts mistakenly released to UPI for a few hours last month.

In the transcripts, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live”--the television show that launched Belushi’s career--testified that he witnessed Smith inject Belushi numerous times with drugs in the days and hours leading up to his death.