Columnist Jeff German: Trying to blame the Behnens

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 | 11:27 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

Kicking off a new television ratings period last week, Channel 8 said it had obtained "shocking information" in the Ted Binion murder case.

The scoop came straight from the heart of the well-paid defense team, which has become adept at manipulating the media.

Lawyers for Sandy Murphy, one of Binion's accused killers, reported that they found a Nevada prison inmate who claims that Murphy and her co-defendant Rick Tabish had nothing to do with the 1998 slaying.

The inmate, 27-year-old Avery Church, who befriended Murphy when she lived with Binion, is serving a life sentence for attempted murder.

Church was interviewed last summer by FBI agents about his knowledge of a Los Angeles drug case. While being questioned, he spouted off about the well-publicized Binion case, but didn't attract much interest from agents.

Then in January a Los Angeles prosecutor informed Binion defense lawyers that Church had provided the government with "potentially exculpatory information" about Murphy and Tabish. The prosecutor, however, refused to give additional details, prompting the lawyers to go to federal court last week to force him to do so.

The legal maneuver is unlikely to have much bearing on the murder case.

That's because Murphy and Tabish are on record in the first trial as maintaining that Binion died of a self-induced drug overdose at his home and did not meet with any foul play.

They can't exactly change their defense strategy now, especially on the word of someone like Church, who has a lengthy criminal rap sheet, and expect to prevail at the retrial in October.

Church, it turns out, didn't impress Jerry Hanford, the veteran chief of the FBI's Organized Crime Squad in Las Vegas.

"A great deal of the information (he provided) appears to lack credibility, including claims that the Binion family had paid off the Clark County district attorney and Judge (Joseph) Bonaventure," Hanford told homicide detectives in a Dec. 15 letter.

Church, Hanford wrote, alleged that Binion's sister, Becky Behnen, and her husband, Nick Behnen, were responsible for Binion's death.

That would be shocking if it were true -- and if Murphy hadn't previously tried to tie the Behnens to Binion's demise to cover up her own tracks.

In all of their months of investigating, prosecutors have never obtained any evidence even remotely pointing to involvement by the Behnens. Everything has naturally steered its way toward Murphy and Tabish, who were romantically involved.

Not too long ago the defense tried to make a big deal out of a mob plot to kill Binion. Information surfaced that the killers of underworld figure Herbie Blitzstein had schemed to do in Binion. But that effort fizzled after it was learned that the wise guys were behind bars on charges of killing Blitzstein at the time of Binion's death.

And now Church has come along to help the defense dirty up the Behnens.

The only problem for the defense is that prosecutors have placed Murphy and Tabish at the scene of Binion's death, not the Behnens or anyone else.

Tabish also still has to explain why he was caught digging up Binion's $6 million silver fortune in Pahrump less than 36 hours after Binion died. The Behnens didn't have the combination to the underground vault. Tabish did.

And prosecutors haven't found anyone, other than Murphy and Tabish, who had the wherewithal to loot Binion's house of its valuables. Murphy had the house key, not the Behnens.

So what we have here isn't "shocking information," but rather a clever defense smokescreen.