Another media circus expected for Binion trial

Dan Kulin

Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 8:46 a.m.

The local media are expected to turn out in force Monday for a court appearance of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish.

The two are to appear before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who will set a date to retry them in the 1998 death of casino executive Ted Binion.

The Nevada Supreme Court on July 14 overturned the murder convictions of both Murphy and her co-defendant, Tabish, and ordered Bonaventure to retry the case.

The first trial in May 2000, drew international media attention, but reporters from outside Las Vegas are not expected at Monday's hearing, where Murphy also will seek bail. The spotlights probably won't return until the trial starts, if at all, court and television representatives said Thursday.

The retrial is being followed from afar by some national media. Dateline and Court TV have been keeping tabs on the court proceedings, court officials said.

But neither is expected Monday morning.

"For now it's just the locals," District Court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said.

Local interest is high for the hearing, as well as any other developments related to the retrial, he said.

Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channels 1 and 19, is planning to broadcast the Monday hearing live, as it did the last trial. Las Vegas ONE is owned and operated by Cox, KLAS Channel 8 and the Greenspun family, publishers of the Sun.

"Locally it will be the story of the day," station Managing Editor Dick Tuininga said. "Monday it's a local day."

But Tuininga said he expects media outside Nevada to take notice once the trial date approaches, and then cover the trial.

"It's going to be a media circus," he said.

Sommermeyer, who said the new trial could begin in August or September, said he thinks the retrial may not be as popular with the media as the first trial was because the public already heard the case when it went around the first time.

But Tuininga disagreed.

Even if the evidence is largely unchanged, there's a "new cast of characters," Tuininga said, referring to the prominent attorneys who now work for the defense.

Houston lawyer Dick DeGuerin will be Murphy's lead counsel. DeGuerin is known for handling high-profile cases and represented David Koresh during his deadly holdout in Waco, Texas.

Prominent San Francisco attorney J. Tony Serra is expected to be Tabish's lead counsel.

"Even if it's the same evidence, it will be presented in an entirely different manner," Tuininga said.

Also, Tuininga said the allure of the case is still there.

"It has all the ingredients, such as where's the silver buried. It's truly a whodunit. It's a sad murder mystery," he said.

The first trial was immensely popular.

"It almost entirely won their time periods," Tuininga said referring to the trial's ratings. "Binion was just off the charts."

Ellie Jostad, a spokeswoman for Court TV in New York, said the station will not be in Las Vegas Monday, but is following the case and hasn't decided yet whether to air the new trial.

"Typically we don't decide whether to show a live trial or taped trial until a week before," she said.

Jostad noted that their airing of the first Binion trial "garnered a lot of interest."

"There's just the human drama of it all," she said. "The pretty young Sandy Murphy with an older guy and then a lover involved, too."

Nevada prison officials are expected to turn Murphy over to the Clark County Detention Center on Monday if she isn't released on bail. She would remain there as she fights the murder charges a second time.

Tabish will remain in the state prison system, where he is serving time on extortion charges related to Binion's slaying.