Murder case may return to public defender’s office

Kim Smith

Friday, March 16, 2001 | 11:54 a.m.

When Margaret Rudin fired her public defenders last summer, she said she wanted a dream team like Sandy Murphy had in the Ted Binion murder case. By the time she went to trial March 2, she had three of the major players in that case on her side.

Now, she may end up losing them and finding herself represented by the public defender's office once again.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure is expected to decide Monday if he should grant Rudin's request for a mistrial. Should he grant the mistrial, Rudin's defense team, which is comprised of Michael Amador, Tom Pitaro, Tom Dillard and Michael Wysocki will be replaced by attorneys and investigators from the Clark County Public Defender's Office.

Dillard and Wysocki were investigators on opposite sides in the Binion case and Pitaro helped represent Murphy. All three of them are being paid by the state and Amador waived his fees when he took on the case. Murphy and Rick Tabish were found guilty in the murder of high-profile gaming figure Ted Binion and are now in prison.

While Rudin wants a mistrial because she says Amador has not had adequate time and money to prepare for the trial, Bonaventure must decide whether Amador's performance thus far falls below competency standards set by the state.

After holding marathon meetings with her attorneys Wednesday night at the jail and again Thursday morning at court, Rudin asked Bonaventure for the mistrial Thursday afternoon.

According to transcripts of a private meeting with Bonaventure, Rudin said she has been concerned for quite awhile that Amador was not prepared for trial. She said it became obvious to her during her sister's testimony Wednesday that something needed to be said.

"I decided I have to follow my instincts at this point, and my instincts say you can't just go on saying things are going to get better and the files are going to be ready," Rudin said.

During the same meeting, Pitaro told Bonaventure that he knew when he was brought into the case last month the case was not ready to go to trial.

Pitaro, however, said when he suggested to Amador that they ask for a third continuance in the case, he was overruled.

As a result, the trial thus far has been a "sham, a farce and a mockery," Pitaro told Bonaventure in chambers.

"For whatever reason it's not ready, it's not ready," Pitaro said. "That's obvious to any observer of this case, that for the first two weeks this is not the way you try cases and this is not the way you try murder cases."

Pitaro said when he attempted to prepare for a cross-examination, he would open a file only to find it empty. Typically, such files contain statements to police and grand jury transcripts -- things attorneys use to find contradictory statements made by state witnesses.

When asked outright if he thought Amador was incompetent, Pitaro said that was not for him to say.

Amador told Bonaventure that while he believes they have "won every witness" so far, he spent so much time on the forensic and financial evidence in the case he isn't prepared to cross examine any other witnesses.

The former prosecutor said he underestimated the complexity of the case and was further hampered when his wife and mother-in-law left his employ because of a pending divorce.

He has spent $35,000 of his own money to further the investigation into the case, Amador said, but it hasn't been enough. Nor, he said, have Dillard and Wysocki had enough time to do what needs to be done in the six weeks they've been on the case.

Amador told Bonaventure he announced he was ready to go to trial because the judge had already told him he wasn't going to grant anymore postponements.

"By the time I was ready to give my opening statement, I was overwhelmed and I could hardly think and my efforts in the opening statement were inadequate," Amador said.

Ironically, Rudin fired Deputy Public Defenders Will Ewing and Jordan Savage because she feared they didn't have enough time to take on her case.

In a letter sent to Bonaventure last May, Rudin wrote that "whosoever must defend me at trial is up against impossible odds."

She went on to say that she wanted someone of Pitaro's stature and someone who would allow her to assist in her own defense.

"This is causing me extreme anxiety, worry and apprehension that a horrid high profile case, as my problems have turned out to be, should become at the most opposite end of Lady Justice's scale from Sandy Murphy's 'dream team' defense," Rudin wrote. "It appears as if justice is equal to whatever defense a client can buy."

Should Bonaventure deny the motion for a mistrial, Amador will continue his cross-examination of Rudin's sister at 1 p.m. Monday.