  In this article we prove that a certain class of {\it smooth} Sasakian
manifolds admits lifts to 4-dimensional quasi-Einstein shearfree spacetimes of
Petrov type II or D. This is related to an analogous result by Hill,
Lewandowski and Nurowski \cite{HLN} for general {\it real-analytic} CR
manifolds. In particular, this holds for all tubular CR manifolds. Furthermore,
we show that any Sasakian manifold with underlying K\"ahler-Einstein manifold
with non-zero Einstein constant has a lift to a shearfree Einstein metric of
Petrov type II or D.
