Smith to Plead Guilty in Deal Resolving Belushi Case

Former back-up singer Cathy Evelyn Smith will plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 1982 drug overdose death of comedian John Belushi, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Monday.

In exchange for a guilty plea, to be entered Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, prosecutors will drop second-degree murder charges and 10 of 13 counts of furnishing or administering heroin and cocaine to Belushi, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Elden S. Fox.

Although no deal was struck on Smith’s sentence, Fox said he would ask Judge David A. Horowitz to impose a prison term of three years. The maximum term Smith, 39, could receive is eight years and eight months, Fox said.

Had Smith, who described herself in her autobiography as a “sounding board to the stars,” been convicted on all counts she could have been sentenced to as long as 25 years to life in state prison. She is currently free on $50,000 bail.

Smith, a Canadian citizen, rejected an identical plea-bargain arrangement in February, 1985, that had been worked out by her Toronto attorney. At that time, her Los Angeles lawyer, Howard L. Weitzman, said he could not in “good conscience” allow her to plead guilty to a homicide.

Weitzman would not comment Monday on the plea bargain. His secretary, Karen Homer, said Weitzman had heard the news reports on the agreement and said, “It appears to be accurate from what we hear.”

Fox declined to speculate on why Smith had reversed herself on the plea. But the prosecutor noted that, “We’re ready for trial. Back then, we hadn’t even had a preliminary hearing.”

Fox pointed out that at the time of the earlier plea negotiation, his office had not yet obtained a key piece of evidence--a tape of an interview with free-lance writer Christopher Van Ness in which Smith admitted giving Belushi more than 20 injections of “speedball,” a mixture of heroin and cocaine, during the last 24 hours of his life.

Van Ness, who at first refused to surrender the tape, eventually handed it over to avoid a 10-day jail sentence for contempt of court.

Smith, a one-time heroin addict and former companion of singer Gordon Lightfoot, was indicted by a Los Angeles County Grand Jury in March, 1983, a year after Belushi, 33, was found dead of acute heroin and cocaine intoxication in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in West Hollywood.

The grand jury acted after the National Enquirer published an article quoting Smith as saying, “I killed John Belushi. I didn’t mean to, but I am responsible.”

Smith’s decision to accept a plea bargain came as no surprise. Last month, both Fox and Weitzman acknowledged that they were trying to reach an agreement.

On Monday, Fox said he expected Weitzman to ask the judge to place Smith on probation. “Howard does not feel that (Smith) should go to jail,” the prosecutor said, “but there are certain realities that come to pass.”

The district attorney’s office has never maintained that Smith intended to kill Belushi, who became famous in the original “Saturday Night Live” television show of the mid-1970s. But prosecutors relied on a legal theory holding that anyone who commits a dangerous felony during which a death occurs can be tried for second-degree murder.

Weitzman has maintained that Smith was only following orders from Belushi and that the comedian, who had a history of drug problems, was on a “suicide mission.”

On Monday, Fox said Belushi’s “conduct in terms of legal culpability is not relevant.”