Binion change of venue sought

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Defense attorneys for Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish filed papers late Monday seeking to move the Ted Binion murder trial outside Las Vegas because of the "enormous" publicity in the case.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the high-profile case, said today he may not oppose the move.

"I am going to seriously consider stipulating to their motion for a change of venue," Roger said this morning. "I don't think the defendants would play well before a White Pine County jury."

Murphy, a 27-year-old one-time topless dancer, and Tabish, a 34-year-old Montana contractor reported to be romantically involved with Murphy, are charged with killing Binion on Sept. 17, 1998, and stealing his valuables.

John Momot, who represents Murphy, and Louis Palazzo, who is defending Tabish, told District Judge Joseph Bonaventure in their papers that it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible," to select a fair and impartial jury in Las Vegas.

"As this honorable court is well aware, this matter has been featured virtually every day since the death of Mr. Binion in the Las Vegas Sun," the defense lawyers wrote. "Moreover, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has routinely followed the case."

The attorneys also pointed to the extensive local and national television coverage the case has gotten.

Part of that widespread coverage has been prompted by Murphy, who has frequently talked to local and national reporters covering the trial and given television interviews, including one on ABC's "20/20" news-magazine show. Momot recently hired a publicist to help him deal with the media.

Momot and Palazzo also asked Bonaventure to sequester jurors during the trial to shield them from the massive media coverage. The lawyers asked that Bibles be taken out of the hotel rooms where the jurors are housed to ensure that their verdict will be based solely on evidence presented in court.

"No other case in the history of the state of Nevada has engendered such media hype and frenzy as the instant case," the lawyers said. "It is assumed and presumed that the media crush will only intensify as this case proceeds to trial."

In an unusual move, the attorneys also asked that the nearly 200 witnesses in the case be sequestered to prevent them from watching any testimony on television, and they requested that Binion's family members and friends be prohibited from showing emotion and sitting directly in front of the jury during the expected three-month trial.

The papers related to the publicity in the case were among 41 defense motions filed Monday as a result of a deadline imposed by Bonaventure. Roger has until Feb. 24 to respond in writing.

One key motion attacks the relationship between police and private detective Tom Dillard, who has been investigating the 55-year-old Binion's death for his $50 million estate.

The motion asks Bonaventure to bar police from using any evidence obtained from Dillard, a former homicide detective, at Binion's 2408 Palomino Lane home without a court-authorized search warrant. Murphy had lived at the $900,000 ranch house for three years and expects to inherit it.

"Here there is no doubt that evidence was obtained as the result of Dillard's illegal searches and seizure," Momot and Palazzo charged. "Additional information was only developed by exploring these illegalities."

The lawyers said that homicide detectives and prosecutors had nearly unlimited "warrantless" access to Binion's home after his death because of their close working relationship with Dillard and James Brown, the lawyer for Binion's estate.

They said security logs show police entered the home without warrants a half-dozen times in the month after Binion's death.

Brown, as the caretaker of the house for the estate, has been at the home numerous times as well, and was even seen leaving with items, Momot and Palazzo charged.

"Evidence no doubt has been compromised by such constant ingress and any trust as to the state of the evidence in the house must be called into question," the lawyers said.

They charged that Brown was hostile toward Murphy when she tried to return to the home the day after Binion's death.

"Defendants," they said, "submit that such open hostility by Brown toward Sandy Murphy, together with the fact that Mr. Brown had free roam of the house, worked hand-in-hand with ex-homicide detective Dillard and the police and discovered certain evidence under questionable circumstances, casts doubt on the integrity of the investigation ..."

Dillard today declined to respond directly to the allegations because he has not had a chance to read the motion.

But he said he wasn't impressed with Palazzo's comments about him to reporters.

"It sounds to me like legal whining because his client (Tabish) is in a tight spot," Dillard said.

Momot and Palazzo also filed motions charging that search warrants executed by police to obtain evidence from Binion's home, Tabish's home and businesses in Montana and a Henderson apartment shared by Tabish and Murphy were faulty.

They said that evidence should not be used against their clients.

The attorneys also argued that Nye County sheriff's deputies unlawfully detained Tabish and seized items from his trucks in Pahrump the night he dug up Binion's silver fortune in Pahrump less than two days after Binion's death.

Tabish and Murphy later were charged with stealing the silver, which the estate, according to a just-completed appraisal, now estimates is worth $6 million.