Mob links dominate Binion new-trial hearing

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

The mob's rumored role in Ted Binion's death remained a mystery during his well-publicized murder trial. Neither side wanted to talk about it.

But on Tuesday the mob was a hot topic in court, as defense lawyers sought to win a new trial for Binion's convicted killers, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish.

Closing arguments in the three-day evidentiary hearing, which covered a variety of subjects, got under way this morning in the courtroom of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure.

Defense attorneys on Tuesday solicited more information about a plot by underworld figures to overdose the wealthy gambling figure on heroin and steal his money months before his Sept. 17, 1998, death.

And a prosecutor, while insisting the scheme would have had no bearing on the outcome of the trial had the defense pursued it, stirred up more intrigue when he pointed out purported ties between Tabish and the Chicago mob.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger suggested that the Chicago mob was going to be called upon to help the 35-year-old Montana contractor sell Binion's $6 million silver fortune after his slaying.

Much of the information that surfaced in court Tuesday had been reported by the Sun over the past year. But it led to a lively discussion between both sides Tuesday.

Defense lawyers contended that Roger had an obligation to disclose FBI reports about the 1997 mob scheme before the trial. But Roger said he never had the reports, and he suggested the attorneys should have been more diligent in pursuing the reports themselves.

One of the FBI reports outlining the plot was featured in a Jan. 30 Sun column long before the trial, Roger pointed out.

Bonaventure placed the column in evidence as he considers whether to grant Murphy and Tabish a new trial. Bonaventure today promised a decision by Sept. 8. He moved back the sentencing date for Murphy and Tabish to Sept. 15.

Defense lawyers on Tuesday told Bonaventure they may have changed their trial strategy had they been provided more information about the mob plot. Murphy and Tabish contended during the trial that Binion had died of a self-induced overdose of heroin and Xanax. Prosecutors, however, persuaded a jury that the defendants had pumped Binion with drugs and suffocated him at his Las Vegas home.

Roger said Murphy, a 28-year-old former topless dancer, would have been linked at the trial to any mob conspiracy to kill Binion because the evidence showed she was at his home at the time of his death.

Tabish, the prosecutor said, also would have been forced to respond to his own ties to the mob.

"There is an aura of organized crime related to Mr. Tabish," Roger said.

Several prosecution witnesses, Roger said, told investigators that Tabish had bragged about his "contacts with organized crime in Chicago."

Investigators also learned that Tabish had telephoned a Chicago area pager number registered to reputed mob associate Salvatore Galioto after the 55-year-old Binion's death, Roger said.

The Sun reported in a Dec. 19 column that Tabish had telephoned Galioto just two hours after Murphy reported discovering Binion's body and again the next morning before he headed to Pahrump to dig up the former casino executive's buried silver.

Records show a man identifying himself as Galioto also visited Tabish at the Clark County Detention Center the evening before Tabish's Aug. 17 preliminary hearing in the murder case.

Roger disclosed that Tabish's ex-wife, Mary Jo, told a friend in Missoula, Mont., the day after Binion's death that she expected her family's financial woes would be solved because her husband was going to be getting silver from Binion.

The friend later told investigators that Tabish's wife had said Tabish planned to take the silver to Chicago.

Defense attorney Gerald Scotti, meanwhile, questioned FBI Agent Charles Maurer and his former organized crime squad supervisor, John Plunkett, about the mob's plan to kill Binion.

The plot, Maurer said, was hatched by the same reputed mob associates who conspired to kill underworld figure Herbie Blitzstein in January 1997.

Maurer testified that he first received information about the plot from a July 1997 jailhouse interview with Ron Mortensen, a former police officer convicted in a drive-by shooting.

Mortensen reported that one of Blitzstein's accused shooters, Antone Davi, had shared a cell with him and bragged about the plan to kill Binion and steal his money.

Then on April 9, 1999, Maurer and fellow FBI Agent Michael Howey received more details from Alfred Mauriello, the reported Mafia figure who had arranged the Blitzstein hit. Mauriello pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill Blitzstein and agreed to cooperate in the probe.

Two weeks later, Davi pleaded guilty and granted an interview to Maurer.

Davi reported that Mauriello had told him and Richard Friedman, the other triggerman in Blitzstein's slaying, that Binion had offered $50,000 to kill his sister, Horseshoe Club President Becky Behnen.

"Binion later changed his mind, and a plot was hatched to rob and kill Binion," Maurer wrote in a seven-page report. "Mauriello told Friedman and Davi that Binion will be robbed and a door to his house would be left open so Davi and Friedman could kill him.

"Mauriello said Binion was a heroin user, and he gave Binion's address to Friedman and Davi. Friedman came up with a plan to use a Tazer (stun gun) on Binion and give him an overdose of heroin while he was under the influence of the Tazer."

Maurer testified that Mauriello had told him that the late reputed underworld figure Peter Caruso had ordered Blitzstein's death.

The FBI, Plunkett said, had heard the mob had targeted Binion as early as February 1997, a month after Blitzstein was killed.

The information was received by John Branco, an FBI informant who was working undercover during the racketeering investigation that led to indictments against Blitzstein's killers, Plunkett said.

Plunkett testified that because of the sensitive nature of the undercover investigation, the decision was made to allow Metro Police homicide detectives to warn Binion of the threat.

Prosecutors contend the conspiracy against Binion was never carried out because all of those plotting his demise were in jail when he died on charges related to Blitzstein's slaying.