DA won’t seek immunity for ex-prison informant

Wednesday, May 30, 2001 | 10:52 a.m.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said Tuesday he won't seek immunity for a former jailhouse informant who once claimed to have knowledge of misconduct by prosecutors in the Ted Binion murder case.

The informant, David Gomez, a three-time convicted felon now serving federal prison time for perjury, asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions under oath when the allegations previously arose in the Binion case.

Herb Sachs, an attorney for Sandy Murphy, one of Binion's convicted killers, sent Bell a letter last week requesting immunity.

But Bell said Tuesday: "It's not going to happen.

"David Gomez is a liar and a career hoodlum," Bell said. "Why should we reward him to get up on the witness stand and lie again?"

Sachs said he isn't surprised to hear that Bell has declined to pursue immunity for Gomez.

He said the district attorney's office isn't interested in finding out the truth.

"If they want to show that he's a liar that would be the way to do it -- put him on the witness stand and cross-examine him," Sachs said.

The defense previously has claimed that Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the Binion case, conspired with jail officials to plant Gomez in the same cell block as Murphy co-defendant, Rick Tabish, to steal Tabish's confidential notes prior to last spring's trial.

At the time, Gomez had been cooperating with jail officials in other matters.

Roger has called the allegations relating to Tabish "false" and "slanderous.

"There has not been a scintilla of evidence to corroborate this convicted perjurer's claim that I planted him next to Tabish," Roger said Tuesday. "The allegations are ludicrous."

In his letter, Sachs said Bell has an obligation to seek the truth.

"The failure of your office to offer Mr. Gomez immunity ... would deprive the public from hearing his accusations under oath and would only sustain the public's impression that your office is guilty of a cover-up," Sachs wrote.

Last August, when Bonaventure tossed out the informant's allegations in court, Roger charged that Gomez had psychological problems.

Gomez later was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in federal prison.

Sachs is working on Murphy's appeal and a motion for a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct.

Murphy and Tabish were convicted May 19 of killing Binion at his 2408 Palomino Lane home. Prosecutors alleged the killers pumped the wealthy gambling figure with drugs and suffocated him.