No evidence offered in informant hearing

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000 | 11:05 a.m.

Rick Tabish's lawyer acknowledged in court Monday that he has no "smoking gun" to prove that prosecutors planted a jailhouse informant next to the murder defendant to steal his personal notes.

And District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, expressing skepticism about the alleged threat several times during defense attorney Louis Palazzo's argument, suggested Tabish could have "made up" the story to embarrass the prosecution, as his murder trial approaches next month.

Tabish and his reported lover, Sandy Murphy, are charged with killing gambling figure Ted Binion in September 1998.

The informant, David Gomez, a reputed member of the Mexican Mafia in Southern California, asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on the witness stand Monday and refused to answer questions about the theft of Tabish's papers.

At the close of the two-day hearing, Bonaventure promised to issue a ruling Friday on the Tabish's claims and his bid to have bail set. Tabish wants the murder case dismissed because of alleged misconduct on the part of prosecutors.

Though Palazzo acknowledged he lacks concrete evidence to prove prosecutors sent Gomez to Tabish's cell block to steal confidential defense notes, the lawyer said: "It certainly smells to high heaven."

But Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the case, again told Bonaventure prosecutors did not place Gomez, an inmate with a history of violent crimes, next to Tabish.

"We did not do it, and we will never do it," Roger said.

The prosecutor also scolded Palazzo for raising the allegations and questioning his ethics before investigating the claims made by his client.

Roger said he found the allegations casting doubt on his integrity "offensive," but he asked Bonaventure to allow him to withdraw his motion for sanctions against Palazzo.

"I understand now that he's a young zealous lawyer who perhaps wasn't thinking before he acted," Roger said.

Earlier in the hearing, Palazzo took the witness stand himself to call the purported theft "devastating" to the defense.

But Palazzo and Murphy's lawyer, John Momot, did not present any evidence that showed the papers were stolen or that they even existed. Tabish didn't even take the witness stand to describe under oath what he claimed was missing.

Roger has called the defense motion a "waste of precious court time" and part of a scheme by the defense to stir up embarrassing pre-trial publicity on the prosecution team.

The prosecutor presented Bonaventure with a two-page report by a Metro intelligence officer who described how authorities were approached Gomez.

Intelligence detectives, the report said, learned that Gomez was in the same protective custody area as Tabish, when Gomez reported to jail officials that he had information Tabish was plotting to kill Binion's gardener, Tom Loveday, a key witness in the murder case.

Gomez, the report said, claimed to have a hand-written note from Tabish indicating he was willing to pay $200,0000 to have Loveday killed.

Detectives, however, concluded the note was not written by Tabish, and they dropped the matter, the report said.