Man says he doesn’t recall assault

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

Steven Dale Bingham is going on trial next week for a crime he says he doesn't remember committing.

Bingham, a 53-year-old trucker from St. George, Utah, is accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl in July 2000.

Even the defense admits the evidence is convincing: He and the girl were captured together on video at the Mesquite casino where he met the child, and his body fluids were found on her clothing.

Still, Bingham is pushing the case to trial, not admitting any guilt, because he says he doesn't remember the girl, let alone the crime. He blames a drug he was taking for Attention Deficit Disorder and will test the Nevada law that says a person who isn't conscious of his actions cannot be held accountable for his crime.

"I'd just like, somehow, to convince people that wasn't me," Bingham said during a jailhouse interview Aug. 23.

Bingham, his doctors and his attorney plan to introduce evidence that he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he attacked the girl.

Bingham's case may be felt far beyond the Clark County Courthouse where it is heard, as his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Joe Abood, attempts to put on trial the drug Bingham was taking: Adderall, the number one prescribed medication for Attention Deficit Disorder.

Seven million people, mostly children, have been prescribed the stimulant since 1996. Abood believes Bingham to be the 12th reported person to experience a psychotic reaction as a result of the drug.

Three of the other 11 committed murder while on the drug, Abood said.

Abood plans to call at least two experts to the stand to support his theory of a psychotic episode.

Deputy District Attorney William Kephart, however, has his own experts, who will testify the drug is a convenient excuse for a child molester.

Police believe that after Bingham and his wife had dinner at the Oasis resort, Bingham walked over to the arcade to select a victim.

He picked out an 8-year-old girl who had wandered away from her sisters, offered her $20, ostensibly to help him unload groceries, and walked her outside.

He then escorted her to some bushes near the freeway and sexually abused her, prosecutors allege.

The girl told police that Bingham said he would have killed her if she had been older, then he handed her $5 and let her go.

The child reported the incident to her parents the next day, and they immediately contacted police. Because he paid for dinner with a credit card, Bingham was quickly identified as the suspect.

By the time police began an investigation, Bingham, a truck driver, was on his way to Texas with his latest haul of dry commodities. He kept getting horrible images of a little girl in his mind, he said.

"I kept getting little jumbled-up flashbacks, but I couldn't tell if they were real or not," Bingham said. "It was kind of like putting together a dream."

Then his wife called him and said police were looking for him in connection with a girl's assault.

Bingham said he immediately turned his rig around and drove to a St. George, Utah, hospital, where he was later arrested.

"I didn't understand what was going on. I thought I was going crazy," Bingham said.

He remembers only a few things from that night -- doubling up on his Adderall because of a missed morning dosage, parking his car at the casino and washing his hands after dinner.

Abood said when he first heard the facts, he wanted to bargain for a plea agreement for Bingham, who faces multiple life sentences if convicted.

He changed his mind after discovering the cases of Ryan Ehlis, Sharon Curry and Dawn Marie Branson.

Ehlis, Curry and Branson are three former Adderall users who were charged with murder. In each case, authorities determined the drug caused them to become psychotic, and criminal charges were not pursued or dropped, or the defendant was acquitted.

After speaking with various doctors, Abood said he became convinced Bingham, too, was a victim of Adderall-induced psychosis.

"There are two victims in this case: this little girl -- my client cries over this little girl -- and Steven Bingham," Abood said.

Now, Abood will only consider an agreement that would allow Bingham to plead the equivalent of no contest to a non-sexual crime and would guarantee probation.

Bingham, a father of seven and grandfather of six, has spent the past year teaching Bible studies in jail, Abood said. Many members of Bingham's church have offered to testify on his behalf, he said.

"He's never been in trouble in his life. He was just following the advice of his doctor," Abood said. "He's the most unlikely pedophile you'll ever meet. The most unlikely child molester you'll ever meet. He's a victim in the case. He truly is."

Kephart said pedophiles and child molesters often maintain dual lives.

"He's a long-distance trucker, and if he's doing this stuff away from the family, how would they know? They wouldn't," Kephart said.

While Abood insists a child molester wouldn't consciously commit such acts with his wife so close by, Kephart said he has prosecuted molesters who committed the crimes with their wife sleeping in the same room.

The most damaging evidence against Bingham is the surveillance tape, Kephart said. Bingham appears normal: He clearly has no trouble navigating his way around the casino and arcade or paying for his meal.

"He had to go out of the casino, where the restaurant is, and over to the arcade, which is in a totally separate building," Kephart said. "If you watch the tape, it's obvious he's casing the joint, he's looking around."

In the three murder cases Abood cited, the defendants exhibited clearly bizarre behavior before they committed their crimes, Kephart said. No such behavior is seen on the videotape.

"They're just trying to place blame," Kephart said. "If someone believes that you can take prescribed medicine and it causes you to do something like that, I feel real sorry for the public. Then no one is taking responsibility. They are always going to blame it on the medication."

Dr. Jakob Camp, a forensic psychiatrist for the Nevada Department of Prisons who will testify on Bingham's behalf, said he often sees prisoners who committed their crimes while on Ritalin, another drug prescribed to ADD sufferers and in the same class of drugs as Adderall.

"I think we'll be seeing more and more people popping up in prison for using Adderall improperly and committing violent crimes," Camp said.

The problem is, many people are unaware that Adderall is an amphetamine, which, over time, can cause problems, Camp said.

"Chemically speaking, it's close to methamphetamine, which is manufactured in garages all throughout this city," Camp said. "In some cases of people who are regularly using amphetamines, illegally or not, psychosis can result.

"It doesn't happen all of the time -- I can't give you a percentage -- but it does happen," Camp said. "And that is what happened in this case."

Dr. Corydon Clark, medical director of The ADD Clinic in Las Vegas, who has been prescribing Adderall since it was approved by the FDA and placed on the market, disagrees.

Clark, who will testify for the prosecution, said there is no reliable scientific evidence that draws a correlation between Adderall and violent behavior.

In each of the murder cases cited by Abood, the defendants were using other substances or were not following doctors' orders, he said.

"It's much more complicated than saying 'Taking this equals that,' " Clark said.

While 60 milligrams of Adderall -- the total amount Bingham took on the day of the incident -- is somewhat high, it isn't alarmingly so, said Dr. Lawrence Greenberg, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who has worked in the field of ADD since 1966.

That amount wouldn't necessarily cause a person taking the drug for the first time to suffer severe side effects like psychosis, and is even less likely to cause psychosis in someone taking it for two years, as Bingham had, Greenberg said.

Bingham said he had no idea Adderall could be behind his problems. It wasn't until Abood told him about the Adderall-related murder cases that he began to realize he hadn't lost his mind.

"It broke my heart," Bingham said. "Once I get out of here, I want to do everything I can to get that drug off the market. ... I don't think parents realize what they are giving their children."

Bingham also said he intends to do whatever it takes to help his victim and her family.

"I know I can probably never gain it from her family, but I would like her forgiveness," Bingham said. "I know with all my heart this wouldn't have ever happened without the drugs."

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