State against credit for time served

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2000 | 11:05 a.m.

Prosecutors filed papers Wednesday opposing a recommendation to give Sandy Murphy credit at her sentencing for time served under house arrest.

The recommendation was made by the Nevada Department of Parole and Probation in a secret pre-sentence report delivered late last week to District Judge Joseph Bonaventure.

Bonaventure will sentence Murphy and co-defendant Rick Tabish at 9:30 a.m. Friday for their roles in the Sept. 17, 1998, slaying of wealthy gambling figure Ted Binion.

In a three-page sentencing memorandum, Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger said state law "requires actual confinement before a defendant is entitled to credit for time served."

But Murphy's lawyer, John Momot, disagreed.

"She should get the credit," he said. "She's entitled to it."

Murphy spent eight months on house arrest living what some described as a life of luxury before being returned to the Clark County Detention Center March 16 for violating the terms of her conditional release.

"Sandra Murphy enjoyed many benefits while she was on house arrest," Roger told the Sun. "She was able to dine at fine restaurants, go to tanning salons and shop for furniture for her luxury apartment. She did not spend time in jail like her co-defendant."

Tabish, a 35-year-old Montana contractor, has been at the Clark County Detention Center on no bond since he and Murphy were arrested on June 24, 1999.

Murphy, a 28-year-old one-time topless dancer, was released to the house arrest program on July 15, 1999, after her latest benefactor, Irish-born millionaire William Fuller, posted her $300,000 bail.

In October 1999, however, she was taken back into custody for violating house arrest rules after jail officials learned that she had dined at the upscale Aristocrat restaurant without notifying them.

Metro Police also had tailed her going into a tanning salon a couple of times.

Before sending Murphy back to house arrest, Bonaventure banned her from the Aristocrat and gave her a stern tongue-lashing about her "cavalier attitude" toward authority.

She later was seen at other gourmet restaurants, such as Piero's, a favorite of the movers and shakers in Las Vegas.

On March 16, two weeks before her trial, Murphy was arrested a second time for violating her house arrest terms. She was picked up for not telling jail officials she had gone furniture shopping for her new apartment in the Regency Towers. Fuller reportedly had paid for the apartment.

In court, Bonaventure told Murphy that she had shown a repeated "disregard for the instructions of the judicial system," and he ordered her jailed on no bond like Tabish.

Roger said he's not opposed to giving Murphy credit for the six months she has spent at the detention center this year. But the prosecutor has indicated he will ask Bonaventure Friday to give both Murphy and Tabish more jail time than what already has been recommended by the jury that convicted them on May 19.

The jury voted to give both defendants life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years on the first-degree murder charge. Bonaventure also must sentence Murphy and Tabish on other charges related to Binion's death, including the theft of his $6 million silver fortune in Pahrump.

Courthouse observers have said Roger could make a case to tack on another 10 years in prison for Tabish and five more for Murphy.

A top detention center official, meanwhile, told the Sun this week that he's looking forward to turning over Murphy and Tabish to the Nevada prison system after Friday's sentencing.

"I'm not disappointed that they're leaving," said Deputy Chief Bill Young, who oversees Metro's Detention Services Division. "They were a challenge for us."

Young described Murphy and Tabish as high-maintenance inmates who sought publicity and gave corrections officers nothing but grief.

For the past several months the two defendants have been held separately at the detention center's second-floor protective custody unit for prisoners who merit special handling.