Columnist Jeff German: Tabish pal has many tales to tell

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2000 | 9:52 a.m.

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.

It turns out that Jason Lee Frazier knows a lot more about Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy than prosecutors thought.

Frazier is the latest member of the Rick Tabish-Sandy Murphy inner circle to roll over on the two people charged with killing wealthy gambling figure Ted Binion.

One more pal of the accused killers, David Mattsen, Binion's former Pahrump ranch manager, is on the brink of cooperating with prosecutors, but he has yet to strike a deal. This is his week to sing.

Frazier, a 28-year-old Tabish friend and business associate from Missoula, Mont., is in the slammer on $1 million bail waiting for immunity to testify about an alleged plot by Tabish to pay off witnesses to provide the murder defendant with an alibi on the morning of Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, slaying.

On Feb. 25, in an interview with Metro Police homicide detective James Buczek, the lead investigator in the Binion case, Frazier laid out the reported alibi scheme.

But according to an 81-page transcript of the interview I've obtained, Frazier talked about much more.

Frazier, who once helped Tabish run his trucking company, told Buczek he has been on the phone with Tabish as many as 40 times a week since Tabish's June 24 arrest with Murphy in Binion's slaying. His phone bills from the Clark County Detention Center, where Tabish also now resides, have been as high as $600 a week, he said.

Frazier, it turns out, also knows Murphy pretty well.

He told Buczek he often would stay at the Henderson apartment Murphy and Tabish shared when he visited Las Vegas prior to their arrests.

When Buczek asked Frazier to describe the relationship between Tabish and Murphy, Frazier responded: "To my knowledge, uh, I've seen them kiss."

Murphy and Tabish have denied having an affair, but Frazier said he suspected they slept in the same bed together at the apartment.

Tabish, he added, also told him that he wished his wife, Mary Jo, was more like Murphy, a 28-year-old onetime topless dancer.

Prosecutors have alleged that Tabish and Murphy were romantically involved while they allegedly schemed to kill Binion, who was Murphy's boyfriend at the time. Records show the two checked into a posh Beverly Hills hotel together the weekend before Binion's death.

"How has he described her sexually?" Buczek asked Frazier.

"He, uh, I guess he said that she's pretty wild," Frazier replied.

"Pretty wild in bed?" Buczek asked.

"Pretty wild all the way around," Frazier said. "Good time, always having fun, always in a good mood. So yeah, they, they got a relationship."

To his knowledge, Frazier said, Mary Jo Tabish has never traveled from her home in Missoula to attend any of her husband's pre-trial proceedings and he doubted she has visited him in jail.

Tabish, he said, often talked about wanting to divorce his wife.

Frazier said he didn't think highly of Tabish's civil lawyer, William Knudson, whom he suggested acted like a courier during the alleged alibi plot, passing him notes from Tabish in jail. Frazier, however, said Knudson never asked him to pay off any witnesses.

"In my opinion, Bill's a joke of an attorney," Frazier told Buczek. "He did nothing to impress me."

Frazier said Knudson appeared "burnt out" to him.

"He was flighty, couldn't keep himself organized," he said. "He was just in constant shambles, in constant chaos, and you know as an attorney, that's not a very appealing situation."

Knudson, who has acknowledged having lunch with Tabish on the day Binion was killed, held a news conference in November with his Los Angeles attorney, Arthur Barens, to accuse prosecutors of harassing and vilifying him during the homicide investigation.

Barens said Knudson acted in a "professional" and "responsible" manner while representing Tabish. He also charged that prosecutors were using unreliable witnesses to dirty up innocent victims, such as his client, in the probe.

Frazier, meanwhile, said his ties to Tabish may have cost him his marriage to his wife, Bobbi, who first alerted police about the reported alibi scheme.

He acknowledged that he had "dug a hole" for himself and that he's trying to dig himself out by cooperating with prosecutors.