Break-in plan alleged in Binion case

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

A top political operative for Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman once suggested breaking into the homes of key prosecution players in the Ted Binion murder case, defense sources told the Sun.

William Cassidy, who took a leave of absence as a City Hall aide to Goodman to work on the Binion defense team, broached the subject in defense strategy sessions for Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, who were convicted of killing Binion, the sources said.

Cassidy, the sources said, wanted to surreptitiously enter the homes of Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, private detective Tom Dillard and Horseshoe Club owner Becky Behnen to plant listening devices and gain access to their computers.

Cassidy, a California private investigator, who claimed to have ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, also bragged that he intended to break into the home of a Las Vegas Sun reporter ferreting out information about the 55-year-old Binion's September 1998 death, defense sources said.

No one within the defense, however, believed that Cassidy, who did not return telephone calls, actually followed through with his proposal.

These allegations come amid new infighting within the defense camp and an investigation by the state Private Investigator's Board into whether Cassidy was working for the Binion defense team without a Nevada license.

"We're doing an investigation into possible unlicensed activity, but it has not been completed yet," said Carol Hanna, the board's executive director.

Hanna said an investigator was in Las Vegas last week interviewing witnesses involved in the Binion case.

Cassidy, a key member of the political team that helped elect Goodman mayor in June 1999, faces a fine if it is determined he worked on the case without a license.

Defense sources, meanwhile, said attorneys for Murphy and Tabish didn't approve of the reported break-in proposal.

And this morning those attorneys, John Momot and Louis Palazzo, denied ever hearing Cassidy make such a suggestion.

"I never heard anything of this nature," Momot said. "I'm not aware of any such comments."

Palazzo added: "That's news to me. I never heard anything remotely similar to what you're talking about. This is just out of left field."

The subject, sources said, was raised last spring while Cassidy was seeking a lucrative consulting contract from William Fuller, an 84-year-old Irish-born Nevada mining executive who was bankrolling Murphy's defense.

"No one believed he was capable of doing the things he said he was going to do," a source close to the defense said. "It looked like an effort to show his importance to Fuller. He was trying to hustle money from him."

Last week, in a motion for a new trial, Tabish's new attorney, William Terry, accused Cassidy of pulling the strings behind the scenes for the defense during the Binion murder trial.

Terry charged that Cassidy, who was paid a total $217,000 for several months of work on behalf of the defense, made several unfulfilled promises to his fellow defense colleagues.

He guaranteed, for example, that Dillard, who works for Binion's estate, and key prosecution witnesses, Leo Casey and Steven Kurt Gratzer, would be indicted and that Goodman would play a role at the trial.

None of that happened, wrote Terry, who made no mention in his motion of Cassidy's talk of conducting the break-ins.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who presided over the trial, has scheduled a hearing Friday on whether to grant a full-blown evidentiary hearing next week on Terry's motion.

Cassidy could not be reached for comment this morning.

But Goodman, who once represented Murphy, said it was "ridiculous" to suggest Cassidy proposed conducting illegal break-ins.

"That's so outrageous, so ludicrous, that it doesn't deserve a response," Goodman said.

Dillard, however, said he had no trouble believing Cassidy boasted of wanting to conduct the clandestine operations.

"During the investigation and after the trial, I heard several reports about Mr. Cassidy and this was one of them," he said. "If he'll brag about killing people, it's not inconceivable he'll brag about illegal surveillances."

Dillard, who filed a crime report against Cassidy for allegedly threatening his life during the trial, said he also heard a report that Cassidy conducted physical surveillance on him and his family.

Behnen, who is Binion's sister, said she was surprised to hear that Cassidy may have talked about breaking into her home.

"I'm offended that he would even think of invading my privacy," she said.

Added Roger: "I can't believe Bill Cassidy would brag about being able to do those types of things. If he did say those things, they must have been in jest."

Terry said in his motion that Cassidy appeared to be more concerned about Goodman's interests than Tabish's while working on the defense.

He charged that Cassidy discouraged Tabish and Palazzo from bringing up information during the trial that Murphy brought bags of silver coins to Goodman's law firm shortly after Binion's death. Prosecutors believe the coins were stolen from Binion's safe.

The Sun reported in June that Goodman told Murphy the coins needed to be inventoried, but Murphy took them back before a full accounting could be made.