Columnist Jeff German: Goodman proud of defenders

Sunday, April 16, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at (702) 259-4067 or by e-mail at german@lasvegassun.com.

If you talk to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, you get the feeling he's proud of the way the hard-charging defense team has stirred things up in the Ted Binion murder case.

He should be. Those doing most of the stirring -- William Cassidy, Tom Letizia and Jim Ferrence -- are members of the political team that got him elected mayor last June.

The trio is spearheading a public relations campaign to put a favorable spin on the tattered reputations of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, two lovers charged with killing wealthy gambling figure Ted Binion and stealing his valuables.

It is a case that pits two outsiders -- Murphy, a one-time topless dancer from Southern California, and Tabish, a Montana contractor with a felony record -- against the well-known Binion family, the ultimate Las Vegas insiders.

Last week Cassidy, a California private investigator with a colorful cloak-and-dagger past, attracted much attention after he began releasing results of a public opinion poll that purports to show more local residents now believe Murphy and Tabish are innocent.

This came as tight-lipped prosecutors began piling up evidence in court in what they believe is a compelling circumstantial case against the accused killers.

In a fiery courtroom exchange with defense attorneys, meanwhile, Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger ripped into Cassidy for putting out "fraudulent figures" designed to influence public opinion and the 12-member jury sitting in judgment of Murphy and Tabish.

An irate Roger said he was subpoenaing Cassidy as a rebuttal witness in the trial and was looking into his past in anticipation of calling him to the witness stand.

Cassidy denied his figures were phony, and Louis Palazzo, who represents Tabish, accused Roger of being vindictive toward the consultant because he doesn't like the results.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure expressed his own displeasure over the release of the results and asked the defense to persuade Cassidy to put a halt to it.

Palazzo, without breaking a smile, insisted he has no control over Cassidy and doesn't know who's paying him to be a defense operative. But he told the judge he already had asked Cassidy to keep a lid on future results.

The 49-year-old Cassidy said he took a leave of absence as a trusted Goodman City Hall aide to rejoin the defense team. He wouldn't say who's paying him, but he acknowledged he was working as an investigator for Goodman on the case long before Murphy and Tabish were arrested in Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death 10 months ago.

"There was nobody around in a position to have memories of this case back to day one but me," he said.

Goodman, who withdrew as Murphy's lawyer last spring when he ran for mayor, said he met Cassidy 15 years ago on a criminal case in Oklahoma and found him to be a "brilliant" strategist.

"I felt he would be a great asset to me in the mayor's office," he said.

So far, he has been a greater asset to Murphy and Tabish.

Goodman said he likes the idea of polling the public during a trial and wishes he had thought of it in his heyday, defending the likes of the late Chicago underworld figure, Anthony Spilotro.

"The more information a lawyer has, the better a lawyer is," Goodman said. "There's nothing ethically wrong with it."

Then he added: "There's a whole new world out there. They've just stepped into the 21st century."

Maybe so.

But in today's tough-on-crime world of politics, any other mayor of a large city in America probably couldn't get away with being proud of a criminal defense team that was stirring things up in a court case.

But then Goodman isn't any other mayor.