The eight-man, four-woman panel found Smith guilty of distributing drugs but rejected the manslaughter charge, opting instead to convict Smith of criminally negligent homicide. She was released pending sentencing.
Smith says she was "devastated" by the verdict. "Everyone was," she says. "Everyone knew I didn't do it. They all said, `You're going to be found not guilty.' But they were wrong."
Smith's attorneys were among those who had predicted a not-guilty verdict. "I don't know if it was a compromise verdict," Butler says of the jurors' decision to convict Smith of a lesser charge. "But as far as we're concerned, it's a complete loss."
Smith's sentencing was set for November 17, but despite the verdict, her attorneys--Butler and Tom Lamm (brother of former governor Dick Lamm)--continued to press forward with the case at no charge. "That's just the way we feel about the case," says Butler. "In the scheme of things, you don't always get cases where you believe your client is innocent, but we absolutely believe in Sue's innocence."
Not long after the trial, Butler and Lamm were called upon to work even harder when Smith claimed that Billy Been was backtracking on his testimony. According to Smith, she approached Been at Empire's Bard Creek Inn on October 18 and he told her that he'd "cut a deal to testify" at her trial, and that he knew that she "had nothing to do with this." The following week, she says, he told her the same thing when she contacted him at another local watering hole.
Based on Smith's account of those conversations, Butler filed a motion on November 9 requesting that Judge Jones either grant Smith a new trial or vacate the judgment of conviction. But when a Georgetown police sergeant investigated Smith's claims, Been told him he'd never said any such thing. In fact, Been told the officer, Smith had been trying to intimidate him. A friend of Been's, Jeff Winefeldt, corroborated Been's version of events. "Since then," Butler says, "Billy Been has refused to talk to anybody." (Been didn't return phone calls from Westword requesting comment. Neither did prosecutor Titus Peterson.)
On November 15, two days before Smith's scheduled sentencing hearing, a full-page ad supporting Smith appeared on the back page of the Clear Creek Courant, the newspaper that serves Georgetown and the surrounding area. The ad was the brainchild of Georgetown cafe owner Becky Richardson. "This whole thing is a real mess, and Sue does not deserve this," Richardson says of the case. "She bends over backwards to help people. She is so well-loved by this town, and that's why those guys [Been and Wirtzfeld] spent the night at her house--she didn't want them to drink and drive."
Richardson's campaign on behalf of Smith was quickly embraced by Smith's friends. "I don't know if things like that can influence a judge or whoever, or if they'd be allowed to be influenced by it," says Joanie Regester. "But I don't want the police or anybody else to think that we believe they did a good job [on this case]. I want them to know that we will not sit quietly by."
Judge Jones postponed the November 17 sentencing, ordering investigators to get to the bottom of the perjury allegations. Procedural difficulties and red tape have delayed the hearing twice since then. The new scheduled date is March 1--Smith's 47th birthday. On that date, Smith expects to learn whether or not she will be granted a new trial. If she fails in that bid, the judge will set a new sentencing date, possibly for later that month.
Smith claims that a part of her feels sorry for Billy Been. "I feel he's been just as much a victim as I have," she says. "I believe he realized Bruce [Wirtzfeld] was dead, he got scared to death, and he blew out of here." Smith says she believes Been lied to protect himself from being charged in the case.
If Smith is angry at anyone, it's Bill Clogston, her husband's erstwhile friend. "Bill Clogston is the one that started this whole mess," she says.
Since the verdict was handed down, Smith has put up for sale the house she and Smitty bought together. She says she needs the money to pay her outstanding legal bills. Smith's eyes fill with tears when discussing the case, and her nails are bitten to the quick. She admits that the thought of jail terrifies her.
"She's the kind of person who always just hopes for the best," Joanie Regester says. "But I just feel like a lot of it is a show to comfort her friends. I'm amazed how she carries on and puts one foot in front of the other."
Smith has moved forward in many respects--she has been dating steadily and is even considering remarrying. But she still hasn't thrown out Smitty's belongings. Her late husband's razor and pocket knife are still in a drawer in the bathroom, she says. His clothes are in an upstairs closet. She still keeps his wallet--expired credit cards and all--in the bedroom.
"I suppose that when I sell the house, I'll have to deal with it," Smith says. "I've got enough going on without having to deal with that, too."
end of part 2
