Witness in Binion case runs up high phone bill

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999 | 10:39 a.m.

Steven Kurt Gratzer took advantage of Las Vegas hospitality in March while testifying before a county grand jury investigating Ted Binion's Sept. 17 murder.

District Attorney Stewart Bell confirmed Monday that Gratzer, a key witness against murder defendants Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, ran up a large telephone bill at Nevada taxpayers' expense while housed at a local hotel.

On April 8, two weeks after Gratzer testified, Bell circulated a memo with concerns about the 36-year-old Montana man's phone bill.

Bell wrote:

"On this date it was reported to me that grand jury witness Kurt Gratzer -- who had been provided a room at the expense of the district attorney's office due to a real and present fear for his personal safety -- had taken advantage of the situation and made an excessive amount of long distance phone calls.

"A decision was made by me that this office would no longer subsidize Mr. Gratzer, his fear for his safety notwithstanding."

Bell said Gratzer's phone bill came to a "few hundred dollars."

After bouncing Gratzer from the hotel, Bell said, he offered to pay Gratzer's first month's rent at a local apartment if he wished to remain in Las Vegas.

Bell said he also offered to provide Gratzer with a "one-way ticket" anywhere in the United States if he chose to leave the city for safety reasons.

At the time, Murphy and Tabish, who also is from Montana, had not been arrested in Binion's murder.

Gratzer decided to return to Montana and was given a ticket out of town, Bell said.

Gratzer is scheduled to return to Las Vegas to testify at next week's preliminary hearing for Murphy and Tabish. The hearing, which gets under way Monday, is expected to last until Aug. 27.

Bell said the district attorney's office is obligated to provide transportation and housing again for Gratzer. But this time, it will put a lock on his phone.

"We were burned once," Bell said. "But we won't be burned again."