Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.
A three-day hearing into whether Ted Binion's convicted killers deserve another trial has stirred new interest in what role the mob may have played in the wealthy gambling figure's death.
In closing arguments Wednesday, defense lawyers tried to persuade District Judge Joseph Bonaventure that prosecutors had an obligation to provide them with FBI reports uncovering a mob plot to give Binion a heroin overdose months before his Sept. 17, 1998, death.
The lawyers suggested that their clients, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, might have changed their trial strategy had they known about the underworld scheme to kill Binion with heroin, his drug of choice.
Murphy, a 28-year-old former topless dancer who lived with Binion for three years until his death, and Tabish, her 35-year-old lover, contended during the trial that Binion died of a self-induced overdose.
But the 12-member jury that convicted them on May 19 believed the prosecution's theory that the two defendants had pumped Binion with heroin and Xanax and suffocated him.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger pointed out in his closing arguments the "absurdity" of the defense now suggesting Binion was a murder victim.
"To claim Ted Binion was murdered would be legal suicide," Roger said. "It's a dead-bang loser."
Roger said additional evidence about the mob plot would not have changed the trial's outcome.
"From our standpoint there is reasonable probability that the verdict would have been the same except that the jury would have been back a lot sooner than eight days," he said.
Roger said any acknowledgement on the part of Murphy and Tabish that Binion had met with foul play would have dragged the defendants into a broader conspiracy with the mob.
Their own actions would have linked them to the mob plot, he said.
Murphy, he said, told a detective she was at Binion's home the day of his death and predicted to others he would die of an overdose.
And Tabish sought the help of Steven Kurt Gratzer, a friend from Montana, to research the idea of overdosing Binion, 55, on heroin and Xanax, Roger said.
Additionally, Roger said, prosecutors would have been able to bring out evidence at the trial that Tabish may have solicited the help of the Chicago mob to fence Binion's $6 million in silver he tried to steal from the day after Binion's death.
A friend of Tabish's former wife, Mary Jo, told investigators the silver was headed for Chicago, Roger said.
He added that investigators had documented phone calls Tabish made to Salvatore Galioto, a reputed Chicago mob associate, in the immediate hours after Binion's death and prior to digging up the silver in Pahrump. A man identifying himself as Galioto signed in to visit Tabish at the Clark County Detention Center the evening before his Aug. 17 preliminary hearing in the murder case.
Several prosecution witnesses, including close Murphy friends Linda Carroll and Tanya Cropp, complained that they feared Tabish, who had bragged about his mob ties, Roger said.
But Murphy's attorney, Gerald Scotti, charged that the defense should have had an opportunity to explore the mob angle, which suggests others in Las Vegas wanted Binion dead.
"The mob is pretty good at doing this, making it look like an overdose," Scotti said. "They talk about killing people. They talk about how to kill people and how to get away with it. For all we know, they might have done it in this case."
FBI agents had obtained information about the scheme from interviews with two men who pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill Binion's friend, Chicago underworld figure Herbie Blitzstein.
The reports, which were written in April 1999, said the mob associates convicted in Blitzstein's Jan 6, 1997, slaying, wanted Binion dead so they could steal what was thought to be millions in cash hidden at his home.
Defense lawyers, Scotti said, didn't learn about the reports until after the trial.
Roger, however, insisted that he didn't know about the reports either and that he turned over everything he had about the scheme to defense attorneys.
"I wanted them to have it all," he said. "I wanted them to have the good, the bad and the ugly."
Sparks flew in court, meanwhile, over defense claims of jury misconduct during the trial.
Murphy's other lawyer, John Momot, charged that the jury was "infected" when the legal phrase "depraved indifference" was introduced on the sixth day of deliberations.
That phrase -- which the lawyers suggested meant someone could be found guilty of murder if they simply were in the home at the time of Binion's death -- led at least one juror to convict Murphy and Tabish, the lawyers said.
That juror, Joan Sanders, went to the defense with her concerns about what had happened during deliberations.
Scotti said the phrase, which was not included in the jury instructions, was improperly introduced to the jurors.
"It had the effect of changing minds," he said. "It wasn't supposed to be there."
But most of the jurors who testified during the hearing said they never heard the two words. And the foreman, Arthur Spear Jr., said the theory behind depraved indifference played little, if any, role in the jury's deliberations.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Wall told Bonaventure that defense lawyers should be prohibited from attacking the jurors over the phrase because it was part of their mental process, which is protected by Nevada law.
Scotti, however, suggested that the jurors weren't being totally truthful because they were trying to preserve their guilty verdicts so they could strike a book deal.
That outraged Wall, who called Scotti's argument "shameful."
Wall said the jurors worked overtime sifting through a massive amount of evidence during their deliberations to give Murphy and Tabish a fair trial.
"This was probably the most dedicated, hard-working jury this county has ever seen," he said.
Scotti responded: "I'm not ashamed of anything that was done here."
Bonaventure said he would issue his decision on whether to grant Murphy and Tabish a new trial on Sept. 8. Sentencing has been pushed to Sept. 15.
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