Expert: Murphy, Tabish prints found on coin list

Wednesday, April 26, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.

A Metro Police fingerprint expert today testified that he found the fingerprints of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish on a handwritten list of coins prosecutors believe were stolen from Ted Binion's safe after his death.

Ed Guenther said he also determined that shoe prints found on the box spring of Binion's bed after his Sept. 17, 1998, death likely were made by two separate hiking or work boots.

And Guenther testified that he couldn't obtain any prints from a bottle of Xanax and other items found near Binion's body on the day of his death.

Prosecutors last July obtained the seven-page list of coins, which Murphy had given her close friend, Tanya Cropp. On Tuesday Cropp, who agreed to cooperate against Murphy, testified that the list had been written by the onetime topless dancer.

Murphy, 28, and Tabish, her 35-year-old lover from Montana, are standing trial on charges of killing Binion and stealing his valuables, including $6 million in silver buried in Pahrump.

Prosecutors were to wrap up their case today with testimony from Jason Frazer, a Tabish friend and business associate who was given immunity to talk about an alleged plot by the Montana contractor to pay off alibi witnesses.

In less than a month, about 100 witnesses were being called by the prosecution in its streamlined case in the courtroom of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure.

Defense attorneys informed prosecutors late Tuesday that they have narrowed their list of witnesses to about 30, which means their case will last about a week to 10 days instead of a month as predicted earlier. Closing arguments could take place by the end of next week.

John Momot, who represents Murphy, said this morning the defense expects to begin its case Thursday by calling attorney R. Gardner Jolley, who filed a palimony suit on Murphy's behalf against Binion's $55 million estate. Also expected to be called early by the defense is homicide detective James Buczek, the lead police investigator in the murder probe.

Defense lawyers have yet to decide whether Murphy and Tabish will take the witness stand. But Momot said he's seriously considering calling Murphy.

In a day of compelling testimony Tuesday, Tabish's brother-in-law, Dennis Rehbein, testified with immunity that Tabish in November 1998 gave him about 100 pounds of silver coins that prosecutors believe were documented on the list containing Murphy's and Tabish's fingerprints.

Cropp, 25, spent time on the witness stand discussing the list that she said Murphy handed her shortly after Binion died. Murphy, she said, asked her to fax the list to Tabish in Missoula, Mont., on Nov. 1, 1998.

Rehbein, the 37-year-old brother of Tabish's wife, Mary Jo, said Tabish offered to sell him the coins during a Nov. 1, 1998, meeting in Missoula, saying he needed the money for his defense. He said Tabish showed him the list that Cropp had faxed.

After Rehbein, who lives in Missoula, refused to buy the coins, Tabish asked him for a $25,000 loan, Rehbein said. Tabish later gave him the coins, many of which were uncirculated, as collateral for the loan.

"With the trouble Rick was in, I didn't really want these coins," Rehbein testified, as his Montana lawyer, John Smith, watched from the first row of the gallery.

Tabish smiled at Rehbein when the witness was asked to point him out to the jury from the stand.

As he was questioned by Chief Deputy District Attorney David Wall, Rehbein said there was sand in some of the boxes of coins he received from his brother-in-law.

Tabish, he said, explained that he had buried the coins at a sand pit in Jean because he didn't want them in his possession because of his arrest in the theft of Binion's silver.

In March, about 15 months after receiving the coins, Rehbein testified, he turned them over to Missoula police and later agreed to testify in Las Vegas against his brother-in-law, who has never repaid the $25,000 loan.

Under cross examination from Tabish's lawyer, Louis Palazzo, Rehbein said he didn't know whether Binion had given the coins to Tabish for work Tabish had done for the wealthy gambling figure prior to his death.

Prosecutors believe the coins were stolen from Binion's safe, which had been looted after his death. Last week, a former Tabish truck driver testified that he saw Tabish loading coins in boxes into the back of a pickup truck on Sept. 18, 1998.

Cropp, meanwhile, testified that Murphy had asked her to make false statements to Tom Dillard, a private detective probing Binion's death for his estate.

Murphy had trouble looking at Cropp from the defense table, as she was questioned by Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger.

Cropp said Murphy summoned her to a meeting at the law office of her former attorney, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, shortly after she was interviewed by Dillard on Sept, 30, 1998.

At that meeting, which occurred in Tabish's presence, Murphy asked her to make false statements to Dillard, she said.

Murphy, she said, wanted her to tell Dillard that she heard Tabish say the day after Binion's death that he "had to take care of something before Jim Brown got his hands on that, too."

The remark was supposed to have been made at Binion's 2408 Palomino Lane home, where Murphy had gotten into a confrontation with Brown, the lawyer for Binion's estate.

Tabish had supplied a videocamera for Murphy and her civil lawyer, William Knudson, to record the contents of Binion's home in anticipation of a bitter court battle over Binion's possessions. Murphy had lived with Binion at the home in the three years prior to his death.

The reported remark by Tabish, prosecutors have alleged, was aimed at giving credence to Tabish's scheme to dig up Binion's silver fortune in Pahrump later that night. Tabish contends Binion wanted him to excavate the silver in the event of his death and turn it into cash for his 19-year-old daughter and chief heir, Bonnie Binion.

At another meeting at the law office a couple of weeks later, Cropp testified, Murphy asked her make an additional false statement to Dillard.

Cropp, who was hired as Binion's secretary the day before he died, said Murphy wanted her to tell the private detective that she saw Binion give Tabish some money at his home that day.

Both Tabish and his employee, Michael Milot, had $1,600 in $100 bills in their possession when they were arrested in Pahrump early on Sept. 19, 1998, for digging up Binion's silver from an underground vault. The serial numbers on most of the bills were in sequential order. Binion had obtained $40,000 in fresh $100 bills from a bank two days before his death.

Cropp also testified that she once confronted Murphy about whether she had poisoned Binion. Murphy, she said, replied that if she had done that, "why didn't police take the glass."

The videotape of Murphy's tour inside Binion's home the day after his death shows Murphy seemingly taking a wine glass from a kitchen counter-top and putting it in her purse.

Cropp said she ultimately made the false statements to Dillard in November 1998 and several months later in February 1999 before a county grand jury investigating Binion's death.

Also during her testimony, Cropp said Binion asked her the day before he died if Murphy was having an affair. She said she told Binion that his longtime live-in girlfriend had "intentions" to cheat on him.

At the time, though, Cropp never told Binion that Murphy was locked in a romantic relationship with Tabish.

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.

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