DA would deal with four Binion defendants

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said Tuesday he's ready to strike deals with the four remaining defendants in the Ted Binion murder case to avoid taking the cases to trial.

"We certainly are willing to talk to the defendants to see if we can reach a resolution without going to trial," Bell said. "If we can't, we'll try the cases."

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the murder case, said plea agreements were possible.

"It's an option," he said.

All four defendants are not charged with murder, but are facing lesser charges related to Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death.

Roger said he planned to sit down in the next few days with fellow Binion prosecutor, Chief Deputy District Attorney David Wall, and "prepare a game plan" for the other cases.

Two defendants, David Mattsen and Michael Milot, are scheduled to stand trial Nov. 13 in the theft of Binion's $6 million silver fortune.

The trial is expected to be held in the courtroom of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who presided over the two-month murder case last spring.

Binion's 28-year-old girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and her 35-year-old lover, Rick Tabish, were convicted in May of killing the wealthy gambling figure and stealing his silver bars and coins from an underground vault in Pahrump two days later.

Mattsen's lawyer, James "Bucky" Buchanan, has vowed to force prosecutors to retry the murder case to prove the theft charges against his client.

Roger, however, said he's not going to let Buchanan dictate which evidence the prosecution will present.

He contended the murder evidence won't be relevant to the charges against Mattsen.

The trial of two other defendants, John B. Joseph and Steven Wadkins, is expected to follow the silver theft case.

Joseph, a former California banker, and Wadkins, a businessman who now lives in Florida, are charged in the torture-extortion plot against former Jean sand pit operator Leo Casey two months before Binion's death. Prosecutors have alleged the two men helped Tabish coerce Casey into turning over his interests in the sand pit. Tabish was convicted in the scheme in May.

Of the remaining defendants, Mattsen, the former manager of Binion's ranch in Pahrump, is the most well known. He is charged with helping Tabish and Milot dig up the silver with heavy machinery on Sept. 19, 1998.

Mattsen, 64, who describes himself as a cowboy, suggested on the witness stand earlier this month that he may know the whereabouts of some of Binion's missing assets.

Binion was thought to have buried valuables on his 125-acre ranch.

After Mattsen's testimony, Roger said Mattsen could help himself in his criminal case if he led authorities to any of Binion's property.

On Tuesday Bell echoed those words.

"If anybody were able to help us locate substantial assets that belong to the estate of Ted Binion, it would certainly be a bargaining chip for the defendant to play," the district attorney said.

During a February 1999 police raid on a Henderson apartment shared by Murphy and Tabish, homicide detectives found a crude map appearing to point to buried treasure at Binion's ranch.

Last September, Binion's estate informed Nye County sheriff's deputies that intruders had dug fresh holes at the very site of the "X" marked on the map.

Murphy had telephoned Binion's longtime secretary less than two weeks after his death to inform her that she knew where Binion had buried valuable property at the ranch. She offered to split the loot with Binion's brother, Jack Binion.

Mattsen once had sought a deal with prosecutors to cooperate in the murder investigation, but prosecutors balked after raising concerns about his credibility as a witness.

He has told the Sun and others that he saw Murphy and Tabish restrain Binion with rhinestone-studded handcuffs the evening before his death. But his story has conflicted with the accounts of other witnesses who saw Binion outside his home in the early morning hours of Sept. 17, 1998.

In March a federal jury acquitted Mattsen on charges of being an ex-felon in possession of firearms.

The charges were the result of a March 1998 raid on Mattsen's home in Pahrump by homicide detectives probing Binion's death. Several weapons were seized in the raid.

Earlier this month, Bonaventure declared Mattsen indigent and awarded him $8,800 in taxpayer funds for legal expenses in the silver theft case.

Most of that money went to repay the district attorney's office for copying 14 boxes of documents accumulated during the well-publicized murder investigation.

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