Daughter of Binion files suit against Murphy, Tabish

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1999 | 11:30 a.m.

Ted Binion's daughter filed a wrongful death lawsuit in District Court today against the two people charged in his killing, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish.

In the three-page complaint obtained by the Sun, Bonnie Binion, the 19-year-old heir to her father's $50 million estate, accused Murphy and Tabish of "engaging in a secret sexual relationship" and plotting her father's Sept. 17, 1998, murder.

The suit alleged that the 27-year-old Murphy "intentionally misrepresented" herself as Ted Binion's girlfriend last summer while carrying on the romantic affair with Tabish, a 34-year-old Montana contractor.

Murphy and Tabish, the suit said, "planned, confederated and conspired together" to murder Binion.

Bonnie Binion's lawyer, Harry Claiborne, charged that Murphy and Tabish "inflicted great physical pain and suffering" on the former casino man and deprived Bonnie of his "companionship" and "comfort."

The younger Binion is seeking general and punitive damages against Murphy and Tabish.

In June, homicide detectives arrested Murphy and Tabish on charges of murdering Ted Binion and stealing his valuables, including an estimated $4 million in silver Binion had stored in an underground vault in Pahrump.

Investigators believe Murphy and Tabish, who have denied killing Binion, pumped the gambling figure with drugs and suffocated him at his 2408 Palomino Lane home. A March 13 trial has been set.

Binion's estate, meanwhile, in court papers filed late Monday, joined his daughter and investigators in accusing Murphy and Tabish of killing the ex-Horseshoe Club executive.

The estate charged that Murphy and Tabish murdered Binion for his coin and currency collection valued at more than $200,000.

"Murphy and Tabish had no ownership or other rights or possession in the property," attorney Bruce Judd said in the counterclaim. "Murphy and Tabish converted the property to their own use and benefit."

The allegations were leveled in a counterclaim to a palimony suit Murphy filed against the estate in May, just five weeks before her June 24 arrest in Binion's murder.

Her lawyer, R. Gardner Jolley, estimated that she was entitled to $2 million for providing "unique and extraordinary" services to Binion while she lived with him from April 1995 until his death.

Murphy, who has acknowledged once dancing topless at Cheetah's adult nightclub, contends she also is entitled to the $900,000 Palomino Lane home, its contents and $300,000 in cash.

Gardner said she kept up Binion's house, cooked for him and "assisted him in his personal, family, social, civic and business activities until his death."

But the estate has said Murphy signed a cohabitation agreement in January 1997 in which she agreed to take only a $125,000 Mercedes that Binion had bought for her and the profits from a stock deal involving the Rio hotel-casino.

A couple of months before his murder, Murphy persuaded Binion to change his will and give her the house and the cash.

At Murphy's preliminary hearing on the criminal charges in August, estate lawyer James J. Brown testified that Binion telephoned him the day before his murder to instruct him to cut Murphy out of his will.

Last December, before Murphy was arrested, a district judge awarded her the home. The estate later appealed the decision to the Nevada Supreme Court, which has yet to issue an opinion.

Both Murphy and Tabish, meanwhile, have been uncooperative when asked to help the estate locate Binion's valuables.

Each asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to the witness stand in February in the estate case.