Columnist Jeff German: Rhetoric grows as Binion trial nears

Sunday, Jan. 9, 2000 | 9:47 a.m.

Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. Reach him at german@ lasvegassun.com or 259-4067.

Time to raise the stakes in the Ted Binion murder case.

Defense lawyers, while sorting out the massive amount of evidence prosecutors have generated in the high-profile case, have stepped up the rhetoric inside and outside the courtroom the past several weeks, as the March 13 trial date approaches.

One attorney, John Momot, put his client, Sandy Murphy, on ABC's "20/20" news magazine and later hired a publicist to deal with the crush of reporters following the unfolding Binion events.

There's even been speculation at the courthouse that Murphy, a 27-year-old onetime topless dancer, secretly went to the FBI with dirt on the Binion family hoping to muddy up the waters in time for the trial.

But Momot says: "That's absolutely not true."

Rick Tabish, the other person charged with killing Binion, once threatened to go to the FBI early in the investigation into the gambling figure's September 1998 slaying. But he reportedly never did.

Attorneys Louis Palazzo and Robert Murdock, who represent Tabish, got much publicity (most of it negative) when they filed a motion the week before Christmas to exhume Binion's body. They abandoned the push, however, when it looked like they were on the verge of making a major legal blunder. The general consensus was that any re-examination of the body would favor the prosecution more than the defense.

But Palazzo and Murdock plan to come back strong on Monday, when they file their writ seeking to dismiss the charges against their client.

So does Momot, who's been working feverishly on his writ for Murphy, Binion's former girlfriend.

After 5 p.m. Monday, the deadline for filing the motions challenging the prosecution's case, the war of words will take center stage in the courtroom of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who will preside over the trial.

The ante will be upped tenfold.

And that means Bonaventure will have much more melodrama to deal with in the coming weeks, as Murphy and Tabish battle for their freedom in the city's most sensational murder case of all time.

On Monday, defense lawyers expect to allege that the Binion's family and estate prodded prosecutors into conducting a "witch hunt" that led to the arrests of their clients.

One of their biggest targets will be private investigator Tom Dillard, an estate employee who has been working closely with prosecutors and homicide detectives for more than 15 months.

The defense is expected to contend that the 55-year-old Binion was a heroin addict who simply killed himself.

The family, lawyers will assert, just doesn't want to believe that Binion could have been responsible for his own death.

Attorneys also expect to question the credibility of some of the prosecution's key witnesses -- people like Leo Casey, the victim in the alleged torture plot two months before Binion's death, and Kurt Gratzer, the childhood Tabish friend who claimed Tabish told him he planned to kill Binion.

Prosecutors, however, plan to stand by their theory that Murphy and Tabish, once reported to be lovers, pumped Binion's body with drugs and suffocated him to gain access to his wealth.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger did an eloquent job at last summer's preliminary hearing laying out the prosecution's theory.

Roger and company will have until Feb. 4 to respond to the defense writs.

Ultimately, Bonaventure, under the watchful eye of the local and national media, will decide whether to dismiss any of the charges against the defendants following a Feb. 18 hearing.

One guy anxiously awaiting his fate is David Mattsen, the former Binion ranch-hand charged in the theft of Binion's buried silver fortune in Pahrump. Mattsen, who also faces federal firearms charges in the coming weeks, is someone prosecutors are eyeing as a potential witness against Murphy and Tabish.

Though there are reports that Mattsen once tried to "roll over" for a large sum of money, his lawyer, James "Bucky" Buchanan, insists his client isn't interested in helping prosecutors. Mattsen's interest, however, might pick up if it looks like he'll have to serve hard prison time on the gun charges.

And so the stakes are being raised in the Binion murder case. Let the game begin.