Final defendant accepts plea deal in Binion case

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2000 | 11 a.m.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure will be sentencing the four remaining defendants in the Ted Binion case Thursday now that the fourth has accepted a plea deal.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger said John Joseph agreed around noon Monday to plead no contest to conspiracy to commit extortion, a gross misdemeanor.

He is the fourth defendant to plead guilty to a gross misdemeanor in connection with the case within the past week. Like the others, David Mattsen, Michael Milot and Steve Wadkins, Joseph faces a $2,000 fine or up to 200 hours community service.

Bonaventure is expected to accept their pleas Thursday morning and sentence them immediately afterward.

Authorities believe Joseph was involved in an extortion plot that took place two months before Montana contractor Rick Tabish and Binion's girlfriend Sandy Murphy killed Binion.

Authorities believe that Tabish was going broke, and he needed Binion's money to buy out a Jean sand pit company he had a gravel-hauling contract with.

Two months before Binion died, prosecutors allege Tabish and Wadkins kidnapped Leo Casey, the primary shareholder in the sandpit, tortured him and forced him to sign over his shares to Joseph.

Then, two months later, in September 1998, authorities say Tabish and Murphy killed Binion by giving him an overdose of drugs and suffocating him.

Less than 36 hours later, Tabish, Mattsen and Milot were caught digging up $6 million worth of Binion's silver coins and bars from Binion's underground vault in Pahrump.

Last week Mattsen started the chain of deals by pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit grand larceny.

Milot and Wadkins followed by pleading no contest Friday to conspiracy to commit grand larceny and conspiracy to commit extortion, respectively.

In addition to the fine, Wadkins also agreed to forfeit the weapons he reportedly used during the Casey incident and his concealed weapon permit.