Turmoil within defense team

Monday, May 22, 2000 | 11:39 a.m.

There were more signs of upheaval within the defense camp this morning as convicted killers Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish prepared for Tuesday's penalty phase in Ted Binion's slaying.

William Terry, who represented Murphy during last August's preliminary hearing, confirmed Sunday night that the Tabish family has asked him to replace Louis Palazzo who appears on his way out after the penalty phase.

Terry said he plans to decide by Tuesday whether to take over from Palazzo. If he does, he said, it would be to file a motion for a new trial and handle an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Famed Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz also is being asked to help with a motion for a new trial, sources close to the case said.

The sources said Tabish is "furious" with Palazzo over his handling of the trial.

Tabish -- convicted with Murphy on Friday of first-degree murder and other charges stemming from Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death -- is reported to be upset at Palazzo for "blowing" his closing argument in the trial and not calling several witnesses, including Tabish, to the stand.

But Palazzo said this morning that Tabish was pleased with the job he did.

"I'm not aware that he's in any way, shape or form unhappy with my performance," Palazzo said. "I fought for my client, and I'm satisfied with my performance throughout the trial. I presented a well-prepared defense."

Palazzo said he still considers himself on the case and is preparing for Tuesday's penalty hearing.

Tabish also is reported to be angry about the role of defense investigator William Cassidy, who took a leave of absence as an aide to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to work on the case.

Tabish, sources said, believes Cassidy has run "interference" within the defense.

"That's certainly not what he expressed to me," Cassidy said this morning. "He expressed gratitude for trying to assist him."

Cassidy said he exchanged "pleasant words" with Tabish's parents after the verdicts were announced Friday.

"In the wake of a conviction, there are all sorts of rumors flying, but I don't place any credence to any of them," he said.

Cassidy, accused of threatening the life of Binion estate private investigator Tom Dillard during the trial, reportedly has been paid for his work on the defense by William Fuller, an 84-year-old Irish-born benefactor of Murphy.

Fuller, a Nevada mining executive, has been footing much of the legal bills for Murphy, including those of her chief lawyer, John Momot, who has kept his distance from Cassidy.

Cassidy said he heard on Friday that Dershowitz may enter the case. Dershowitz has been linked to the defense before, but he has never formally become involved.

Much of the current dissension within the defense is likely to become public in the motion for a new trial after the penalty hearing.

At the hearing, which gets under way at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Deputy District Attorneys David Roger and David Wall expect to push for life sentences without the possibility of parole for both defendants on the first-degree murder charges.

Binion's 19-year-old daughter and chief heir, Bonnie Binion, is likely to be among the dozen or so prosecution witnesses.

Prosecutors also are considering calling Binion's older brother, Jack Binion, who has stood silent throughout the seven-week trial and the lengthy criminal investigation.

The older Binion, the longtime former owner of the family-owned Horseshoe Club, is the executor of his brother's estate. He hired Dillard to investigate his 55-year-old brother's death on behalf of Bonnie Binion.

In January 1999 Jack Binion was the first to publicly accuse Murphy and Tabish of having an affair and stealing Ted Binion's valuables after his death.

Also on the prosecution's witness list are Binion's two sisters, current Horseshoe Club President Becky Behnen, and Brenda Michael, who lives in Texas.

Behnen was the first to publicly urge police to investigate her brother's death as a homicide.

Prosecutors also expect to bring out Tabish's criminal record in Montana. He served time in prison for a 1988 cocaine trafficking conviction and once was charged with stealing a valuable painting from one of his lawyers.

For the most part, defense lawyers, who have told reporters they believe they have a good shot at overturning the conviction on appeal, aren't talking about who they might call as witnesses at the penalty hearing.

Momot said he was thinking about asking Murphy's father, Kenneth, and her stepmother, Sandra, to take the witness stand again. Both testified at the trial.

Palazzo said he might ask Tabish's parents, Frank and Lani Tabish, to testify Tuesday.

On Friday, following eight days of deliberations, 12 jurors returned guilty verdicts on all 17 counts against Murphy and Tabish in the most well-publicized criminal case of all time in Las Vegas.

In all, Tabish was convicted of 11 counts and Murphy of six.

Both were found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring to murder Binion, as well as robbery with the use of a deadly weapon and burglary and grand larceny.

In closing arguments during the trial, prosecutors told the jurors that Murphy and Tabish forced Binion to drink a lethal cocktail of Xanax on the morning of Sept. 17, 1998, and then suffocated him to speed up his death after his gardener showed up to mow the lawn.

Then, prosecutors charged, the two lovers looted his Las Vegas home and its safe of all of its valuables, including his $300,000 collection of antique coins and currency, and conspired to steal his $6 million silver fortune that was buried in an underground vault in Pahrump.

Roger and Wall told the jurors that Binion was the victim of a "classic murder" plot. Murphy and Tabish, they said, killed the wealthy gambling figure because of their "lust" for each other and their "greed" over his millions.

The prosecutors said the killers also arrogantly left their signature in their crimes, a lone silver dollar on the floor of the Pahrump vault and a single dime in the middle of the safe at Binion's 2408 Palomino Lane home. A Halloween decoration with the letters "R.I.P." also was left above the front entrance to the home. Halloween was six weeks away at the time.

While plotting Binion's demise, the defendants weaved a tale of deception that prosecutors said continued during nine-month homicide investigation with manipulation of witnesses. During the trial, prosecutors said, Murphy and Tabish tried to blame Binion's death on everyone but themselves.

The case pitted the politically connected family of the eccentric, drug-addicted casino man against two little-known Las Vegas outsiders.

There was Murphy, a 28-year-old transplanted Southern Californian with a reputation for being a gold digger who met Binion while dancing topless at a local adult nightclub. And there was Tabish, a 35-year-old married contractor and convicted felon who came from a prominent family in Missoula, Mont.

Prosecutors said the greed of both defendants fed off of each other and resulted in the plot to kill Binion, who had returned to using drugs after Nevada gaming regulators in March 1998 revoked his license and forced him to sell his 20 percent interest in the Horseshoe Club, a popular downtown gambling joint founded by his late legendary father, Benny Binion.

Binion's body, Roger and Wall charged, was laid out in a "mortuary pose" on the floor of his den surrounded by an empty bottle of Xanax with no fingerprints on it and other personal items to make it look as though he had committed suicide.

At first police thought Binion had indeed died of an overdose because of his known drug use and the lack of signs of foul play at the death scene.

But in a Sun story the next day, Behnen urged police to investigate her brother's death. Other friends and employees also raised suspicions about Binion's death in interviews with the Sun. And on Sept. 19, 1998, Nye County sheriff's deputies arrested Tabish and two other men after they had dug up Binion's silver fortune in Pahrump.

Two days later Binion estate lawyers Richard Wright and Jim Brown asked Metro homicide detectives to probe Binion's death. But detectives informed the lawyers that they wanted to wait for the results of drug tests on his body before entering the case. At that meeting, Brown related a conversation he had with Binion the day before his death in which he was instructed to take Murphy out of the former casino executive's will. Brown said Binion predicted Murphy might try to kill him.

Shortly after that meeting, Wright and Brown hired Dillard to investigate Binion's death on behalf of the $55 million estate. Homicide detectives later entered the case after drug tests found lethal levels of heroin and Xanax in Binion's system.

But it wasn't until March 15, 1999, when Clark County Coroner Ron Flud changed the manner in which Binion died from undetermined to homicide. Three months later on June 25, Murphy and Tabish were arrested and charged with killing Binion.

Throughout the investigation, Murphy and Tabish continued to insist that Binion had committed suicide.

And suicide was their defense during the trial even in the face of testimony from renowned New York pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who insisted Binion was the victim of the 19th century suffocation method known as "burking," in which pressure is exerted on the victim's chest and his mouth and nose are covered, leaving few marks.

Defense attorneys paraded a string of medical experts during their case hoping to discredit Baden, including his good friend Dr. Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh, who enjoys a similar celebrity status in the world of forensic pathology. Wecht testified that he saw no signs of suffocation and that Binion had died of a self-induced overdose of heroin and Xanax.

But under cross-examination, Wecht was forced to acknowledge that defense lawyers never gave him access to statements from the dozens of prosecution witnesses who had detailed the murder conspiracy. Wecht essentially came to his conclusions in a defense-created vacuum.

Complicating matters for prosecutors, however, was the testimony of Clark County Chief Medical Examiner Lary Simms, who performed the autopsy on Binion's body. Simms testified that he also did not see signs of suffocation. But Simms agreed with Baden that Binion was the victim of a homicide. He said he died of a forced overdose of heroin and Xanax.

Prosecutors called about 90 witnesses to the stand in a streamlined case that took five weeks to present. They originally had listed 276 witnesses, but decided at the last moment to go with a leaner case to avoid confusing the jury.

The trial was sped along by District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, a "no-nonsense" jurist with more than 21 years of experience on the bench. Bonaventure ruled the trial with an iron hand but a touch of humor that often put the jury at ease under the watchful eye of the media.

Much of the trial was aired live on Las Vegas ONE, a local cable news channel, and Court TV, a national legal network. The trial attracted interest from such network magazine shows as "20/20" and "Dateline.

The prosecution's case was made easier when Momot and Palazzo acknowledged in opening arguments that Murphy and Tabish were romantically involved at the time of Binion's death.

The admission came as prosecutors were prepared to present numerous witnesses confirming the relationship. Prosecutors traced hundreds of cellular phone calls between Murphy and Tabish in the weeks before Binion's death and uncovered records of secret trysts between the two at posh Beverly Hills hotels, including one the weekend before Binion died.

Among the key witnesses who testified for the prosecution were three Montana men close to Tabish, all of whom were given immunity.

Steven Kurt Gratzer, a former Army Ranger and childhood Tabish friend, testified that Tabish asked him to think of ways to kill Binion. Gratzer stepped forward and struck a deal with prosecutors a year before the trial.

About six weeks prior to the trial, Jason Frazer, a 29-year-old Tabish friend who once ran his trucking businesses, agreed to testify that Tabish had sought his help in a scheme to pay off alibi witnesses.

And just days before the trial got under way, Tabish's brother-in-law, Dennis Rehbein turned in 100 pounds of silver Tabish had given him as collateral for a $25,000 loan. Prosecutors alleged the silver was stolen from Binion's safe by Murphy and Tabish after his death.

Last July, Tanya Cropp, a close Murphy friend, agreed to cooperate with investigators. She testified at the trial that she was told to fax a seven-page list of coins believed to have been stolen from Binion to Tabish in Montana. The list was written by Murphy.

Cropp also testified that Murphy and Tabish persuaded her to lie to investigators probing Binion's death.

Defense lawyers brought in experts to attack the crime scene they alleged was contaminated by the Binion estate, which took control of the home the day after Binion's death.

They accused the "Binion Money Machine" of railroading their clients.

But when it came time to present their defense, the attorneys never called any witnesses, such as Behnen and Dillard, to the witness stand to substantiate that claim.

And Wall in his closing argument said a desire for Binion's money is what drove Murphy and Tabish to kill Binion.

Attorneys for Murphy also tried to portray her as a victim of Binion's drug-addicted world.

And they passed blame on his death to his "Dr. Feelgood" neighbor, Enrique Lacayo, who gave him a prescription for Xanax the day before he died, and his heroin supplier, Peter Sheridan, who brought him 12 balloons of tar heroin that evening.

There were moments of high drama during the trial.

After presenting witnesses who testified Murphy's hysteria the day of Binion's death appeared "theatrical," prosecutors played a 20-minute videotape of Murphy giving a tour of Binion's home the day after his death.

The tape showed a dramatic change in Murphy's demeanor. In less than 24 hours, Murphy went from being the grieving girlfriend to the foul-mouthed greedy heir. She was observed using profanities and pointing to items she said were hers at the home.

But most importantly for prosecutors, Murphy appeared to be take a wine glass from a kitchen counter and slip it in her purse with her back to the camera.

Defense lawyers suggested Murphy had been drinking wine out of the glass that day, but prosecutors alleged the glass was used to mix the deadly Xanax cocktail that Murphy and Tabish had forced Binion to drink.

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.

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