Judge orders print samples in Binion case

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure today ordered two men charged with stealing Ted Binion's silver to provide finger and palm print samples for the investigation into the gambling figure's slaying.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger filed court papers last week seeking the prints to determine whether David Mattsen and Michael Milot were at Binion's home the day of his September 1998 slaying.

Bonaventure also ordered Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, to give finger and palm print samples.

Roger said Murphy's samples were needed, because police had misplaced previous prints taken when she and her reported lover, Rick Tabish, were arrested June 24 and charged with killing Binion.

Bonaventure said providing the new samples would not violate the Fifth Amendment rights of Murphy, Mattsen and Milot.

"The law is very clear that the state can do it," the judge said. Bonaventure issued his order at a hearing this morning despite objections from lawyers for all three defendants.

James "Bucky" Buchanan, who represents Mattsen, said police had no evidence whatsoever to link his client to Binion's slaying.

Roger said a police criminalistics expert wants to compare Mattsen's and Milot's prints to unidentified prints found on the floor of the bathroom next to the den where Binion's body was discovered at his 2408 Palomino Lane home.

"Latent prints from the floor of the southeast bathroom were not identified with the palm prints of Tabish, Murphy or Binion," the expert, Edward Guenther, wrote in a Sept. 15 report. "No known palm prints of Milot or Mattsen are on file for comparison purposes."

Mattsen and Milot are charged with Murphy and Tabish with stealing $4 million to $5 million in silver that Binion had buried in an underground vault in Pahrump. The theft occurred less than 36 hours after Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death in Las Vegas.

Though Mattsen and Milot are not charged in Binion's slaying, Roger's motion suggests investigators have not ruled them out as possible suspects.

Roger last week also asked Bonaventure to examine behind closed doors a computer disk and two microcassette tapes seized from a Henderson apartment shared by Murphy and Tabish. The prosecutor wants Bonaventure to determine whether the items contain attorney-client information protected from public disclosure.

Roger also is seeking to force Las Vegas lawyer Chris Tilman to provide testimony about his conversations with the 27-year-old Murphy prior to Binion's slaying.

Tilman has cited his attorney-client relationship with Murphy -- who reportedly sought his advice about a separation agreement with Binion weeks before Binion's death -- in refusing to cooperate with prosecutors.

The computer disk and the microcassettes have been under seal since they were confiscated by homicide detectives during the early morning Feb. 19 raid on the Henderson apartment.

Murphy's attorney at the time, Mayor Oscar Goodman, told detectives the items were considered part of Murphy's relationship with her lawyers and not subject to disclosure.