Columnist Jeff German: Where does Sandy get all the cash?

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 | 10:51 a.m.

There may be no limit to the amount of money Sandy Murphy's defense team is prepared to throw around to win her acquittal on charges of killing Ted Binion in 1998.

This week we learned the big spenders for the defense have come under investigation for giving money to a key prosecution witness, Steven Kurt Gratzer.

Now comes word that Murphy's defenders are digging even further into their deep pockets as the October retrial approaches.

Her lead lawyer, Michael Cristalli, confirms that he has hired Magellan Research to conduct a telephone survey to gauge public opinion and help him prepare for jury selection.

The questions, Cristalli says, also are designed to help the defense avoid the mistakes it made during the first trial, which resulted in the murder convictions of both Murphy and her co-defendant, Rick Tabish. The 2000 convictions were overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court last year.

The defense poll, I'm told, already is in the field, and when it's completed Magellan will be helping Cristalli set up focus groups to test his legal arguments.

This kind of expensive pretrial research is a luxury that lawyers for the average criminal defendant simply can't afford.

But Murphy isn't your average defendant.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of cash being poured into her defense. She has no money of her own, yet she has had the resources to hire the best lawyers money can buy -- people like Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who spearheaded her appeal.

Since being released on bail in December, Murphy has been spotted around town dining at gourmet restaurants, partying at Strip nightclubs and shopping at high-end clothiers. She lives in an upscale Henderson apartment, drives a shiny new Mercedes and has been gambling at local megaresorts.

Those close to Murphy say she owes her life of luxury to William Fuller, a wealthy, but mysterious, 80-something mining executive who is about as visible in public as Howard Hughes was in his later years. The devoted "good Samaritan" has been at her side from the day he first bailed her out of jail in July 1999 with money wired from his native Ireland.

Then there are the suspicious-minded ones, such as Binion's sister, Becky Behnen, who wonder whether Binion actually is paying for Murphy's exploits.

"The question people ask me the most is where she's getting the money," Behnen says. "I tell them Ted's still in action."

Keep in mind that Murphy also is charged with stealing an undetermined amount of valuables from Binion's home after his death. These are valuables that are missing to this day.

District Attorney David Roger, who is leading the just-disclosed witness-tampering probe of the defense, has long sought to solve the mystery of Murphy's seemingly endless supply of cash.

"I've always wondered whether an elderly gentleman would spend this much money on a woman charged with murder," Roger says. "We've attempted to identify the sources of the financial resources that have been available to her, but our leads have dried up."

Then Roger adds: "There's always lingering questions about whether she's actually spending Ted Binion's money."

Maybe we need a poll on that.