Smith’s No Contest: She ‘Won’t Drag His Name Through Mud’

Former rock backup singer Cathy Evelyn Smith pleaded no contest today to involuntary manslaughter and three counts of furnishing controlled substances to John Belushi, but her lawyer said Smith “in no way concedes that she was responsible” for the comedian’s 1982 drug overdose death but doesn’t want to “drag his name through the mud.”.

Smith’s attorney, Howard L. Weitzman, said outside the courtroom that even though he believed his client would have been acquitted of causing Belushi’s death, she agreed to a plea bargain to avoid a conviction on drug charges and a possible 10-year sentence.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Elden S. Fox said he would seek a three-year prison term when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz sentences Smith on Aug. 18.

Explaining further why Smith decided to avoid a trial, Weitzman said: “She has strong feelings about dragging John Belushi’s name through the mud, putting his family through that trauma.”