Ex-Tabish employees offer alibi

By Matt Pordum

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004 | 9:48 a.m.

Two former employees of Rick Tabish testified Tuesday that Tabish was with them tending to a broken water meter during the hours when prosecutors allege he was helping Sandy Murphy suffocate Ted Binion.

David Wilcox and Rocky Teeters both said Tabish was at the All-Star Ready Mix, a North Las Vegas concrete company, from sometime between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. until about noon on Sept. 17, 1998. The testimony backs an alibi Tabish's attorney's have been pointing to since opening arguments.

Prosecution witnesses have placed Binion's time of death between 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m on that day, but said the most likely time of death was between 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Wilcox said he remembered the day clearly because it was "three days before I was going to quit" and it was two days before his birthday. He recalled "trying to avoid Rick (Tabish) a little bit" because he hadn't yet told him he was quitting.

Teeters supported Wilcox's memory saying he remembered the day well because the "water meter wasn't working and Rick (Tabish) was out there and a little upset." He said he saw Tabish around 8:30 a.m., but didn't see him past noon.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas questioned the veracity of Tabish's former employees asking them each if they actually remembered Tabish being at work that day or instead were told he was there by a former investigator hired by Tabish's prior defense team.

Wilcox and Teeters each said that while the investigator helped refresh their memories of the day, they were in no way coerced into providing a false alibi for Tabish.

Prosecutors allege Murphy and Tabish suffocated Binion and tried to make it look like an overdose. The defense contends Binion died of an accidental overdose of heroin, Xanax and Valium.

Tabish and Murphy had been lovers at the time of Binion's death, though Murphy was living with Binion. In 2000 Tabish and Murphy were convicted of murdering Binion and were sentenced to life in prison, but the Nevada Supreme Court later overturned the convictions.

A third former associate of Tabish who supported Tabish's alibi, Jim Mitchell, died before the current re-trial got under way. In Mitchell's testimony from the first trial, which was read into the record, Mitchell said he saw Tabish at work between 8 a.m. and noon on the day of Binion's death.

In his testimony last week, however, Jason Frazer, a former business associate of Tabish, said that while Tabish was in custody in the Clark County Detention Center during the summer of 1999, Tabish asked him to contact Mitchell to "set up an alibi."

Mitchell testified at the first trial that he saw Tabish "all over the place" at All Star the day of Binion's death and that he never received any money from Frazer or Tabish for his testimony.

While the jury heard much testimony as to Tabish's alibi, a ruling made by District Judge Joseph Bonaventure outside of their presence will prevent them from hearing even more. For several minutes, that ruling had attorneys for Murphy on the same side as the prosecution.

Bonaventure refused to admit a statement from a former friend and employee of the Binion family who told Binion estate investigator Tom Dillard in 1999 that he was at Binion's home during the morning hours of Binion's death and never saw Tabish.

Don Johnson, who has since died, in a 24-page statement said he was at the Binion home at 10 a.m. the day of Binion's death. Johnson, however, was never called as a witness in the first trial and has since died.

Murphy's attorney, Michael Cristalli, would not join attorneys for Tabish as he has in almost all their objections and motions thus far, because the statements of Johnson could be incriminating to Murphy.

Tabish's attorney, Sherry Greenberger, noted that Johnson was a longtime friend of Binion and not a friend of Murphy or Tabish, so he had no reason to lie in his statement.

She also argued that the statement was admissable under previous rulings made by the Nevada Supreme Court, which allowed juries to consider statements of unavailable witnesses that were never cross-examined.

Greenberger cited a murder conviction that was overturned by Nevada's high court after it ruled the District Court judge erred by not allowing the statements of two witnesses who died before the trial to be heard by the jury.

Daskas successfully argued the high court case was entirely different as the statements in question were "single, quick statements not open to interpretation." In the case Greenberger cited, Daskas said the two witnesses had told authorities they saw two people instead of three committing the crime.

He said the Johnson statement is a "24-page, inconsistent, rambling statement" and that the reason it was not even used by the defense in the first trial was because it was not credible.

One issue that was possibly cleared up by Tuesday was whether or not Tabish and Murphy were having lunch together with attorney Bill Knudson at the Z'Tejas restaurant on Paradise Road at Twain Avenue on the afternoon of Binion's death.

Knudson's brother-in-law, Tony Martin, and Martin's banker, Richard Baker, both testified to seeing Knudson at the restaurant with Murphy and Tabish on Sept. 17, 1998.

Tuesday afternoon offered the jury an opportunity to see Murphy "humanized" as Cristalli called two of her friends to the stand.

Billy Bacon said Murphy was renting a room from him back in 1995 when one day he came home to find Binion and two Horseshoe security guards helping her move so she could live with Binion.

Bacon said he would later become close friends with Binion and he soon considered Binion's house his "second home" where he would "eat, play chess and watch television" with Murphy and Binion.

He called the home a "loving house" that gave him -- a man living alone -- a sense of family.

Bacon said Binion's life revolved around getting his gaming license back, but once the Gaming Board ruled against him his life went from "being all about regaining his gaming license to all about heroin."

Bacon said although he previously had visited the Binion house three times a week, during the last six months of Binion's life he was increasingly alienated from Binion so his visits decreased. He said he never saw Murphy with Tabish and that hr could tell Murphy and Binion "were in love with each other."

Murphy cried into her hands in court as a videotape Bacon filmed at Binion's home in February 1998 was shown to the jury. Murphy can be seen putting away a game she had been playing with Bacon, and later playing the piano.

Binion appears at the very end of the video eating in the kitchen. Bacon asks Binion how he's doing, to which Binion replies "good."

The tape offered visual evidence for the first time that the drapes being on the window overlooking the backyard were not closed for the first time on the morning of Binion's death. On the night that the videotape was made they were closed.

In some of the most unusual testimony of the trial thus far, a 17-year-old former neighbor of Murphy and Binion's testified to his fond memories of his time with the couple.

Alexander Jariv, who was 7-years-old when his family moved into the house next to Binion's in 1995, said he would go over to the house and visit Murphy and Binion just about every day. He said the "home was always open to me, they (Binion and Murphy) were a second father and mother."

Jariv, now a student at UNLV, said Binion "taught me how to be a man" and Murphy taught him to "be respectful." He said Murphy would take him shopping regularly and also helped him learn to play the piano.

After Binion lost his gaming license, however, Jariv said things changed, as Binion didn't like spending time with him and was "in another world, zoned out as if it was over already."

The day before Binion died Jariv said he was riding a bicycle Murphy had bought him in front of Binion's home when he saw Binion "stumble outside, pale with a robe on, mumbling his words; he looked like a ghost."

Upon finding out Binion had died Jariv said he thought his own "life was over." He said Binion's death was the reason he moved to Australia after the incident.

Jariv said he regularly saw the drapes in the living room closed and often saw Binion lying on a blue mat because of back problems.

Authorities found Binion's body on Sept. 17, 1998, on a blue mat in the den of his home.

The defense is expected to continue its case this morning.