Reporter Ordered to Testify in Belushi Hearing

A reporter for the National Enquirer must testify at the preliminary hearing for Cathy Evelyn Smith, the Canadian woman accused of murder in the 1982 drug death of comedian John Belushi, a judge ruled Tuesday.

In denying reporter Anthony Brenna’s request to quash a prosecutor’s subpoena, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Brian D. Crahan said there “is no absolute right to (claim a journalist’s) privilege at a preliminary hearing. There are no good grounds at this point to quash the subpoena.”

The hearing, held to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence to hold Smith, 38, for trial, is scheduled to begin April 30 in Crahan’s court.

Injected With ‘Speedballs’

In an interview published in the Enquirer several months after Belushi’s death on March 5, 1982, Smith was quoted as saying she repeatedly injected the comic with “speedballs”--mixtures of heroin and cocaine--in the hours before he died. She also was quoted as saying she administered the “coup de grace,” the final injection that killed the 33-year-old Belushi.

That interview was conducted by Brenna, who lives in Los Angeles, and another Enquirer reporter, Larry Haley, a Florida resident.

The district attorney’s office has also subpoenaed Haley and Iain Calder, editor of the Florida-based tabloid, and a Los Angeles free-lance writer, Christopher Van Ness, to testify at Smith’s hearing.

Telephone Interview

After Belushi’s death, Van Ness interviewed Smith by telephone. An article based on that interview was submitted to the Enquirer but was never published.

Haley and Calder are fighting their subpoenas in a court in Palm Beach County, Fla. The Florida judge has not decided whether they must appear. Van Ness has not taken any legal action to avoid testifying, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael J. Montagna, one of the prosecutors in the Smith case.

Brenna’s attorney, Brian O’Neill, argued in court that the district attorney’s office failed to show that his client’s testimony is necessary to prosecute Smith and that the information Brenna has is not available from other witnesses.

Montagna disputed those assertions.

“In order to prove the cause of death, it is absolutely essential to get in statements made by Cathy Smith to those (Enquirer) reporters and Chris Van Ness,” Montagna said.

Smith’s admission, reported in the Enquirer interview, that she was the sole source of Belushi’s heroin is critical to the prosecution’s case, Montagna said, because medical experts told the Los Angeles County Grand Jury that Belushi would not have died if heroin had not been present in the mixture administered to him.

Although Smith did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, her attorney, Howard L. Weitzman, was present, but only as an observer.