Man, 69, gets 262 months in prison

Jace Radke

Tuesday, April 15, 2003 | 10:06 a.m.

A 69-year-old man characterized as a career criminal by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Johnson was sentenced to 262 months in prison Monday.

Robert Joseph Marshall promised to appeal the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Lloyd George after being convicted in October of conspiracy and distribution of a kilogram of cocaine.

Johnson said that Marshall has been in trouble with the law throughout his life.

"Since 1977 he hasn't been out of jail for more than 2 1/2 years at a time," Johnson said. "Once he gets out of jail he attempts to perpetrate crimes, usually involving drugs.

"He has demonstrated that he cannot exist in society without preying on it."

FBI agents and Metro Police believe Marshall knows something about a 1972 car bombing in Las Vegas, but they have been unable to extract any information from him.

William Coulthard, a former FBI agent, was the landlord of Benny Binion's Horseshoe at the time of his death in the bombing.

Marshall and others were also the subjects of a series of wiretaps in December 1999 in an FBI investigation into racketeering, drug trafficking and the possibility of co-conspirators involved in the murder of casino figure Ted Binion, according to a sworn affidavit filed by FBI agent Gerald McIntosh.

Rick Tabish, convicted of the murder of Ted Binion, filed suit against the FBI and the Justice Department to get the information in the wiretaps, but a federal judge ruled that the information did not have to be turned over.

Tabish had hoped that information in the wiretaps might clear him. He and Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, were convicted of the murder in 2000.